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Sit 





ETHICS 


In Theory and Application 


| yn OF PING E Pn 
NINN! 7 2 995 





oy Oateat § ey 
KTHICS 


In Theory and Application 


BY 
HORATIO W. ‘DRESSER, Pu.D. 


Author of ‘‘ Psychology in Theory and Application” 


NEW YORK 
THOMAS Y. CROWELL COMPANY 
PUBLISHERS 


Copyright, 1925 
BY 
THOMAS Y. CROWELL COMPANY 


PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 


TO 
ALICE REED DRESSER 


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Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2022 with funding from 
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https://archive.org/details/ethicsintheoryapO0Odres 


PREFACE 


THE purpose of this volume is to consider the great 
issues of moral life and theory anew in the light of recent 
tendencies, that ethics may be brought into closer accord 
with practical life and the other social sciences. Moral 
issues, always subject to change and calling for fresh esti- 
mates, have passed through an unusual upheaval since the 
outbreak of the World War, and the moral situation has 
enlarged in scope. Psychology has been adding to our 
knowledge of human nature, disclosing new possibilities 
of human development, and supplying new topics for 
ethical criticism. Under the head of psychology, study of 
the sources of war, analysis of motives which actuate the 
crowd, and renewed interest in the solidarity of the race, 
people have been fostering ethical inquiry without calling 
it so. Controversies over religious creeds have also in- 
creased our interest in questions which are strictly ethical. 
The movement toward the abolition of war involves ques- 
tions of moral principle not to be settled save through 
reconsideration of our loyalties. 

The objections raised against philosophy in general, 
namely, that philosophers deal in abstractions and seldom 
agree, do not apply to ethics. There is indeed remarkable 
agreement among the few schools of thought to which 
ethical types may be reduced. This agreement noted, there 
is increasing opportunity for alliance between ethics and 
other fields of interest, such as international law, not 
usually brought into close relation with ethics. With the 
breaking down of the old theoretical barriers, all the social 
sciences have come into more intimate relation with issues 
for which people are contending day by day. There is 
no longer any reason why the student of sociology, eco- 
nomics, or history should stand aloof as if ethics were 
merely a study of justice in the abstract, an analysis of 

Vii 


Vill Preface 


motives, or & mere inquiry into the nature of conscience. 
All science eliminates what is peculiar or transitory, In 
favor of what is significant or permanent. Indeed, there 
is a meeting-point for all the social sciences in the concrete 
study of human relations in their complete natural envi- 
ronment, in the light of social well-being. We are approach- 
ing a time when the study of human nature may be re- 
garded as the discipline of greatest significance. 

Ethics or moral science is regarded in these pages as the 
science which makes more explicit and persuasive than any 
other this profound interest in human character. Any lack 
of interest in ethical matters is taken to mean failure in 
the past to show the connection between daily life and the 
moral ideal, to misunderstanding of terms, or to neglect of 
the relationships between the sciences. This book makes 
articulate the reaction against the moralizing of the past, 
by putting new emphasis on spontaneity, the dynamic or 
energizing principle of daily life, and on practical ideals. 
The first two parts cover the ground of a semester course, 
so far as general principles are concerned, while the third 
is devoted to the application of ethical principles in various 
fields. The book is intended for use in college classes, and 
the order of subjects, the mode of presentation is based on 
experience in teaching classes in ethics. But the book is 
also intended for the general student of human life and 
literature, history, economics, sociology, social psychology, 
and social problems in general; hence the references ap- 
pended to the chapters are for both the college student, 
taking up ethics for the first time, and for the student who 
has opportunity for general research. The appeal is to 
those larger interests which we are never able to satisfy 
while we limit our studies to mere description of facts, the 
use of statistics, or any merely quantitative method. 

The style has been made as untechnical as possible, in 
view of the fact that ethics calls for the finest analyses and 
the most precise definitions. The reader is frequently re- 
minded that the way to grasp ethical principles is to turn 
to daily experience for reconsideration of our prevailing 
interests. We have all been reared under a system of moral 


Preface aes 


instruction. If we take exception to it, this criticism 
implies some other ethical ideal, and the standard which 
we prefer may be made more intelligible by putting it in 
relation with the great teachings of the past. Questions 
are appended to some of the chapters, to suggest application 
to daily life, lest the student make the traditional mistake 
and regard ethics as purely abstract or general. 

In acknowledging indebtedness, it is impossible to say 
how much is due to Professor G. H. Palmer, under whose 
guidance the writer began his studies in ethics, and whose 
work as a teacher of ethics he came to know intimately 
while Assistant in Philosophy in Harvard University. Such 
work means knowing men as men seldom know one another. 
It means placing men in publie life, renewing ancient cul- 
ture at its best, showing the unity between Greek and 
Christian ideals, and compassing the wide field where 
science and religion are too often sundered. Professor 
Palmer’s great influence in the field of ethics ought indeed 
to receive such recognition and such a tribute as he him- 
self has given in his widely read volume, ‘‘ Alice Freeman 
Palmer.’’ 

This book attempts to apply this same idealism by con- 
necting the older interest in ‘‘goodness’’ with present in- 
terest in moral values, and by calling attention anew to the 
ideal of the ethical organism which Professor Palmer, more 
than any other teacher of ethics, has emphasized. The 
writer is also much indebted to Professor J. M. Warbeke, 
Miss Margery Carr, and other friends in Mount Holyoke 
College, who have read portions of the book while in prepa- 
ration, and have given valuable criticism. The footnotes 
and references indicate other indebtedness. The references 
have been chosen with the realization that many are today 
interested afresh in values—economic, moral, religious— 
and that many are raising the question anew, What is worth 
while? Is it possible to acquire a scale of values? Some 
of the standard text-books have been included in the lists 
of references throughout the volume, so that one or two 
of these may be constantly at hand by way of comparison. 
It will be profitable for the student to make an analysis 


x Preface 


of some subject of present interest, such as international 
law, or to make a special study of a work like Myers’ 
‘‘History of Past Ethics.’’ The method of study most 
strongly advised is a union of the historical and analytic 
methods. Hence in the following pages there are frequent 
references to the ethical teachings of the Greeks. Ethical 
science is indeed in part a philosophy of history, or study 
of human progress; hence it is important to ask, What 
constitutes progress? To what extent are the ethical ideals 
of today new formulations of principles which have ap- 
peared and reappeared in the past? 


Horatio W. DRESSER. 
Hillside, South Hadley, Mass, 
April 1, 1925. 


CHAPTER 


CONTENTS 


Part ONE 


THE BASIS OF ETHICS 


PAGE 


I. THe NATURE AND SCOPE OF ETHICS . 


Definition—Moral Conduct—What Ethies As- 


sumes—The Realities of Moral Experience— 
Standards—Moral Consciousness and Ideals— 
The Ideal Element—Quantity and Quality— 
Custom and Ideals— Moral Philosophy— 
Moralizing—The Moral Reaction—Morality. 


II. THe IDEAL AND THE PRACTICAL 


Moral Struggle— The World Crisis — Moral 


Benefits—The Larger Problems—-The Indi- 
vidual Problem—The Sphere of the Ideal— 
The Practical—Recent Tendencies—Sources 
of Idealism—Life as an Art—The Creative 
Art—The Larger Moral Analysis—The Need 
for Criticism—Summary. 


Til. Tur ReAumM oF VALUES 


IV. 


Ethical Judgments—The Descriptive Sciences— 


Interpretation—Ethical Interpretations—The 
Position of Ethics-—-Moral Necessity—Good- 
ness and Beauty—Sources of Value—Reasons 
for Values—Human Basis of Values—Lower 
and Higher Values—The Moral Order—The 
Supreme Values—The Need for a Practical 
Scale — Extrinsic and Intrinsic Values — 
Values Spring from the Deed in the Given 
Situation. 


PSYCHOLOGICAL PRINCIPLES : j : 
Psychology and Ethics—Human Nature The 


Social View—Social Consciousness--The Un- 

conscious — Temperament — Efficieney—Men- 

tal Levels—Fullness of Life—Conversion— 
xl 


Ly 


ol 


42 


X11 


CHAPTER 


Contents 


PAGE 


Value of Psychology—Need of Criticism— 
Activity—Mental Elements—Instinct — Desire 
—Wish and Will—Will—Habit—Intuition. 


V. Conpuct AND CHARACTER . 


Moral Integration—Feeling—Motives—Intention 


and Motive—The Basis of Motives—Dynamic 
Motives—Character—Elements of Character— 
Unity of Character—The Self—The Self as 
Ideal—The Self as Conscious—The Self as 
Person — Spontaneity — Creative Intuition— 
The Spirit. 


VI. Toe Dawn or MorRAtity 


Man and Nature—The Original “Motives—The 


First Problems—Group Morality—The First 
Virtues—The Function of Custom—Levels of 
Development — Conventionality — Develop- 
ment of Authority—Moral Evolution—Pre- 
vailing Conceptions—The Universal Element— 
Reflective Morality — Emotional Origins— 
Reason as Origin—Summary. 


VII. Morat OBLiGATION 


VIII. Pieasvure As tHE Goop 
Ethical Types—Classification of ffifeevies The 


Generalization—Moral Action—Moral Judgment 


—Judgments and  Intentions—Objects of 
Moral Judgment—Moral Law—Moral and 
Civil Laws—Origin of Moral Law—<Authority 
of Moral Law—The Sanctions—The Nature 
of Moral Obligation—Evidences from Experi- 
ence—Moral Law and Obligation—Law as 
Necessary—Obligations and Values—Law and 
the Self—Inner Obligation—The Ultimate 
Basis—Right—The Nature of Rights—The 
Absolute Element. 


Part Two 


GOODNESS AND FREEDOM 


vailng Attitudes — Pleasure-seeking — The 
Scope of Pleasure—Characteristics of Pleasure 


62 


(7 


94 


. 115 


CHAPTER 


TX. UTILITARIANISM AND EVOLUTION . 
Utility as the Good—Mill’s Doctrine—Social 


X. STOICISM AND SELF-SACRIFICH . . : 
Discipline—The Cyniecs—The Simple Life—Sto- 


XI. Formauism AND INTUITION 
The Good Will—Kant’s Aim—Moral ea 


XII. IpeALIsM sib Fas an: 
eld Cay ppv OR pre ted and Spirit 


Contents 


Xl 


PAGE 


—Pleasure and Pain—Simple Hedonism— 
Later Forms of Hedonism—Objections to 
Hedonism—Hedonistie Caleulus—The Calculus 
Defended—Pleasure and Happiness—Happi- 
ness as the Test—Happiness as a Motive— 
The Element of Satisfaction—Signs of Well- 
being—Need of a Scale. 


Utility—Objections to Mill’s Doctrine—Evolu- 
tionary Hedonism—Criticism of Spencer’s 
Ethies—The Organic View—Sidgwick’s View 
—Ideal Utilitarianism—The Value of Utilita- 
rianism—Hstimate of Evolution—Moral Rea- 
son and Evolution. 


icism—The Rational Standard—Divine Law— 
Independence—Equanimity — Self-consistency 
—Roman Stoicism—Marcus Aurelius—Reason 
as Arbiter — Self-sacrifice—Asceticism—Self- 
denial—Uneertainties of Self-sacrifice—Self- 
sacrifice as Instrumental—Devotion—Limita- 
tions of Self-sacrifice. 


The Categorical Imperative—Rational Free- 
dom—Estimate of Kant’s Ethics—Intuition- 
ism—Objections to Intuitionism—Ambiguities 
of the Term—Self-evident Truths. 


—The Reconciling Principle—True Autonomy 
—Paulsen’s Solution—Janet’s Hudemonism— 
Types of Goodness—Extrinsie Goodness—In- 
trinsic Goodness—The Moral Organism—TIn- 
terdependence—The Test of Goodness—The 
Stages of Goodness—Self-determination—Co- 
ordination—The Ideal Self. 


. 131 


. 143 


. 160 


telyae 


X1V Contents 
CHAPTER PAGE 
XIII. Duty AND RESPONSIBILITY . 3 é . 189 


XIV. Sin anp Evin. : 
Theories of Evil—Evil in Gonisia Whroar Evil 


XV. CoNSCIENCE .. Neale agee 
Scope of the OLS ea Conceptions—The 


XVI. Tur Propitem or FREEDOM Yt Wao, MEN a dee 
Scope of the Question—Fatalism—Predestina- 


The Moral Constant—Goodness an Duty—Duty 


and Inclination—Objections to Duty—The 
Command of Duty—Love and Duty—Duty for 
Duty’s Sake—The Conflict of Duties—Loyalty 
—The Ought—The Ought as a Standard—As 
a Basis of Judgment—The Creative Ought— 
Duty as Adjustment—Right and Wrong— 
Good and Bad—Responsibility—Moral Re- 
sponsibility—Accountability. 


—The Social Evil—Crime—The Reality of 
Evil—Vice—Sin—Mistakes—Crime and Dis- 
ease—Knowing and Doing—Evil and Respon- 
sibility—Sin is Irrational—Evil is Disorgani- 
zation—Summary. 


Variability of Conscience—Conscience as a 
Faculty—As a Voice—The Moral Constant— 
The Evolutional View—As a Dictate—Reli- 
gious Sentiments—Conscience as Divine— 
Practical Clues—Elements—The Growth of 
Conscience—Conscience as a Synthesis—The 
Element of Authority—The Ethical Scale— 
Objections to Martineau’s Scale—Need of a 
Working Scale—Summary. 


tion—Divine Omnipotence—The Bad Will— 
Calvinism—The Necessitarian View—Deter- 
minism—Cosmie Evidences—Evidences from 
Biology—Sociological Evidences—Physiologi- 
eal Determinism— Evidence from Psychology— 
Ethical Evidences—The Psycho-physical Argu- 
ment—Ethical Objections—The Element of 
Attention—Personal Acts—Moral Decisions— 
Heredity and Environment—The Moral Situa- 
tion. 


. 208 


. 220 


. 245 


CHAPTER 


XVII. THE NATURE OF FREEDOM . 
Freedom of the Self—Meanings of the Term— 


XVIII. Optimism AND PESSIMISM . 


XIX. THe WortTH OF THE INDIVIDUAL 


XX. THe VIRTUES i 
The Value of ape saceerys Neti of Virtue 


Contents 


XV 


PAGE 


Inner Freedom—Ideal Freedom—The Element 
of Chance—Choice—Awareness of }'reedom— 
Ideal Causality—Moral Deeds—Initiatives— 
Personal Action — Indifference—Self-deter- 
mination — Rational Freedom — Virtue as 
Knowledge—The Element of Attention—Im- 
mediate Certainty—Kantian Freedom—Berg- 
son’s View—Freedom Defined—Limitations 
of Freedom. 


Types of Freedom—The Degrees of Freedom 
—Freedom as an Ideal—Popular Optimism— 
Moral Optimism — Pessimism — Pessimistic 
Types—Limitations of Pessimism—The Values 
of Pessimism—Meliorism—Limitations of Evil 
—Summary. 


Altruism as a Natural Fact—Objections to the 
Naturalistic View—Altruistie Origins—The 
Reaction Against Egoism—The Individual as 
Starting-point—Self-love and Altruism—The 
Basis of Values—The Union of Opposites— 
Consciousness as the Type—The Social Rela- 
tion—The Ideal Unity—The Social Will—The 
Individual and Orthodoxy—Creative Work— 
Vocations—Limiting the Individual. 


Part THREE 


THE MORAL LIFE 


—The Greek View—Classifications—Prudence 
— Self-control — Temperance — Courage — 
Manliness — Endurance — Independence — 
Patience — Wisdom — Self-culture — The 
Christian View. 


. 266 


Cae te e en) iron COO. 
Interpretations of Freedom—The Ruling Love— 


« 298 
EKgoism—Altruism—Naturalism as a SoltHone 


. 319 


XVI Contents 
CHAPTER PAGE 
XXI. Tuer Socrat VIRTUES . : i i EROOU 


XXII. Tor SpHERE oF ALTRUISM . 
Giving—The Mechanisms of Givine—Gifts— 


XXIII. Trusts of VIRTUE . 
The Unity of Virtic Comper of Scions 


XXIV. Morau Forces ° 
The Problem of Tdealism—How Ideals are Real- 


Sourees of Social MPN ent en oe 0 0 dinlyy gi 


View—The Scope of Justice—Equality—Nat- 
ural Equality—Spiritual Equality—Propor- 
tionality—Opportunity—Equality and Justice 
—The Self-determining Individual — Good 
Fortune—Benevolence — Charity — The Good 
Life—Summary. 


The Ideal Neighbor—Service—Reciprocity— 
Compensation —- Participation — Mutuality— 
Love as a Motive—Love and Justice—The 
Concrete Universal—Ethical Love—Marriage 
—Friendship—The Implications of Friend- 
ship—Fundamental Relationships. 


Contrasted Types— Codes as Tests — The 
Golden Rule as a Test—What This Rule De- 
mands—Moderation as the Test—Universality 
as the Test—Casuistry—Qualifying Ideas— 
Limitations of Rules—Test Questions—The 
Value of Analysis—Conscientious Seruples— 
Coming to Judgment—Evidenees of Moral 
Suecess—Moral Correlations—The Geometry 
of Virtue—Objections to this View—The Com- 
plete Test—The Need of Simplifying—A 
Working Scale of Values—The Still Small 
Voice. 


ized—Ideas as Forees—Objections to this View 
—Synthetic Action—The ‘Causal Series— 
Values and Causes—Effective Foreces—How 
Mind is Conditioned—Attaining Fitness— 
Favorable Conditions—Effective Deeds—Moral 
Failures—Higher Values as Forces—The 
Power of Ideals—-The Value of Inner Peace— 
Ideal Attitudes—Ideals as Objectives—Virtues 


‘as Forees—Efficacious Virtue—Moral Eduea- 


tion—Moral Mechanisms. 


. 352 


. 367 


is} 


Contents XVil 


CHAPTER PAGE 
XXV. Mora PROBLEMS . A : : ¥ ; ‘ . 407 


Social Consciousness—The Effect of Conscious- 
ness— The Larger Self-consciousness — The 
Honor System — Misdemeanors—Consistency 
as a Test—Compromises—Smoking and Self- 
ishness—Serving One Master—Lawlessness— 
Christ in Business—Work—Arousing the 
Moral Will—The Problem of Duality of Self 
—Sourees of Duality—The Content of Mental 
Life—Substitution—Repressions—Man’s Men- * 
tal Environment—The Moral Environment— 
Self-mastery—True Self-expression. 


XXVI. INTERNATIONAL Erutcs ‘ : ‘ f : . 425 


World Issues—International Law—Sources of 
International Principles—Ethics and Laws— 
Popular Sovereignty—The Rule of the Best— 
The Two Ethical Types—Representative De- 
mocracy — Anti-nationalism — Ultra-democ- 
racy—MeDougall’s Solution—Christianity and 
Democracy—International Progress—The So- 
cial Conscience—The American Conscience— 
Social Conscience Defined—The International 
Conscience—Organie Coédperation—The Ethi- 
eal Horizon. 


XXVIII. MorAt PROGRESS . : ; ; A u ; . 444 


Progress as Inevitable—Ancient Views of the 
World—Modern Conceptions—Growth—Evo- 
lution—History—What Civilization Means— 
Our Spiritual Needs—The Religious Horizon 
—Finality—Christianity as a Life—Moral 
Advance as the Test—What is the Moral Test 
—Community of Interests as the Test—Moral 
Changes—Self-discovery as the Test—The Law 
of Progress—Social Equilibrium—Moral Bet- 
terment—Goodness and Its Conditions—Prog- 
ress in Our Ideals—Statie and Dynamic Ele- 
ments—National Ideals—Progress in the So- 
cial Conscience—Alexander’s Definition of 
Progress—The Productive Principle. 


XXVIII. Eruics AND RELIGION . ; . 464 


Points of Resemblancee—The Problem of Loyalty 
—Priority of Experience as a Clue—Theology 


XVII Contents 


CHAPTER PAGE 


as a Sign—Precepts as the Test—Religious 
Realities—The Element of Controversy—Lib- 
eralism—Contacts and Divergencies—Ethies as 
the Criterion—Creeds as Fetters—Religion as 
Life—The Content of Religion—The Contri- 
butions of Christianity—The Christian Type— 
Christianity as Final—Doctrinal Limitations— 
The Ethical Problem To-day—Summary. 





@ XXIX. ULTIMATE VALUES 


First and Last Things—The Conservation of 
Values—The Basis of Values—Being as the 
Basis—Inner Experience as the Basis—The 
Present Life as Basis—The Value of Faith— 
Beyond Agnosticism—Ethiecal Points of View 
—Christianity as Ultimate Basis—The Philos- 
ophy of History—The Future Life—Moral 
Persistence—Man’s True Selfhood. 


INDEX 


. 483 


. 501 


ETHICS IN THEORY AND 
APPLICATION 


Part ONE 


THE BASIS OF ETHICS 


CHAPTER I 
THE NATURE AND SCOPE OF ETHICS 


Definition.— Ethics is the science of the moral life. It 
is concerned with human conduct in relation to character 
and a conception of the good, commonly referred to as 
the highest good. It considers conduct with reference to 
right and wrong, good and evil, the basis of moral obliga- 
tion, the nature of duty, conscience, freedom; and the 
problems of egoism, altruism, social service and develop- 
ment in the light of the highest ideals. It is the science 
of the ideal element of life on its moral side, the science 
of moral values or goodness, the permanent element in 
human conduct in contrast with the transient. Morality, 
or the moral life, is the sphere of activity with which the 
science of ethical values is concerned. The experience 
exists long before the philosophy. The science seeks to 
make explicit the distinctions, standards, laws, meanings, 
and values implied in the moral experiences of the race. 
It brings to a focus the ideal interests involved in conduct 
judged to be conduct of the highest type, conduct pursued 
with a purpose in view which involves a philosophy of life. 


2. The Basis of Ethies 


Moral Conduct.—Conduct known as moral differs from 
the behavior of organisms in general. Science describes 
the behavior of animals with reference to energies operat- 
ing mechanically in bodily organisms. This mechanical 
behavior is said to take place in response to stimuli, as in 
reactions to light; and interest centers about the natural 
environment with its forces, the sense-organs, the bodily 
or perhaps the chemical conditions. The description is 
made as simple as possible with reference to the implied re- 
flex or instinct, as when wild geese are seen in flight, fol- 
lowing a leader, or when various species of quadrupeds 
are found herding together. As part of the mechanical 
order of nature, man too may be described with reference 
to what his organism is seen doing, as he works, plays, 
responds to bodily wants and needs, foregathers, makes 
war, or dwells in peace with his neighbors. For biology 
man is a unit among many other units whose behavior 
psychology describes for us by regarding the mind as in 
intimate relation with the body. But the simpler the 
description of man’s life the more matters are left over 
as not yet accounted for. When activities which are meas- 
urable become the standard, questions of worth or value, 
and ultimate purpose persist in coming up for later con- 
sideration. While man may indeed respond to a herd 
instinet, as one of the higher animals whose behavior is 
determined by his habitat and his heredity, he is also an 
individual in a sense which marks off his life from that 
of even the highest animals we know. 

Moral conduct presupposes activities which the various 
descriptive sciences, such as biology and psychology, por- 
tray, but it is especially concerned with the quality of 
man’s inner life, his intimate experience, the contrasts 
and conflicts which in a measure separate him from ex- 
ternal nature. For such conduct implies that man _ be- 
comes self-conscious and in a degree self-directive. It 
discloses judgments passed upon the conduct of others, 
involves a persistent contrast between the ideal and the 
actual which runs through his whole experience. Thus 
his inner life may be far removed from the behavior of his 


The Nature and Scope of Ethics 3 


organism, as in war, when his heart may disapprove of 
what his hands are compelled to do. His inner life may 
seem indeed to have had a higher origin and to imply a 
standard radically different from that of brute force. His 
inner life implies interests which develop without limit 
and in such a wealth of sentiment that each man dwells 
in a measure in a world of his own; the world of person- 
ality, of efforts to be individual, produce, excel, attain 
more abundant life. His ideals as surely exist for him 
as the experiences which bring him in contact with nature 
and ally him with animals. Hence the need for a special 
science which takes up matters of profoundest interest 
when we have sought the utmost that can be bestowed on us 
by history, economics, psychology, the arts, and even when 
religion has brought its surest satisfactions. Moral con- 
duct then is distinctively concerned with judgments im- 
plying contrasts between higher and lower, in which em- 
phasis is placed, not on the mere origins or bodily econdi- 
tions of the energies pulsating in man, but on the ends 
pursued. Man is regarded as a person in so far as he 
knows himself, wills to be a complete individual in the 
light of a moral standard. If then we define ethics as 
the science of the conduct of life, in contrast with be- 
havior, we especially note that ‘‘conduct’’ is an active 
term, implies something to be done; hence an art of 
morals should follow from the science of morals, and we 
should consider under what conditions moral conduct be- 
comes most effective. 

What Ethics Assumes.—In thus beginning with the 
facts of moral conduct, with its varied problems, as dis- 
covered by the individual, ethics regards man as a real 
self in relation to other moral selves, in a real universe 
of space and time, although the moral order of the universe 
may also be said to be independent of given space and 
particular time. It is also assumed either that man is 
morally free or that, so far as his conduct may be de- 
termined, he is still accountable for his actions; that is, 
the facts in any case are admitted by those who believe 
and those who disbelieve in freedom of will. The presence 


4 The Basis of Ethics 


of an ideal element, a realm of eternal principles, sometimes 
called ‘‘the world of appreciation,’’ is implied. That 1s, 
the reality of duty and right, the existence of the moral 
order, is regarded as sure, howbeit this reality is not at- 
tested to in the same way as the existence of things in space 
which we see and touch. Indeed, in various connections 
nothing is so real for man, nothing so convincing, or unes- 
capable as the pronouncements of conscience, the judgments 
of his fellowmen, and the results of conduct which neither 
law-courts nor the mutations of time can take away. Ethics 
is the one science which above all others pushes through 
doubts and contrasts to a single principle. 

The Realities of Moral Kxperience.—This experience 
for individual man constitutes his inner life or world, ‘‘in- 
ner’’ not in the sense of being discoverable by self-analysis 
as if you and I were cut off in utter exclusiveness from 
each other, in contrast with deeds done, as when by an act 
of heroism another’s life is saved. It is moral experience 
as conceivably existing for all, hence as in its way, disin- 
terestedly there for an intelligent observer to witness in 
its fullness. While at one moment we may be aware of 
employing physical forces, eating and living like animals; 
conscious of desires that are unappeased, of appetites that 
are unchecked; of temptations to do wrong, to cheat, lie, 
steal, take cowardly advantage, to be idle or lazy: at other 
moments we are aware of aspirations, ambitions to be good, 
respected, influential in the best sense, upright, true to the 
highest we know. The conflict makes us know what we eall 
conscience, which sits in judgment on our motives, and 
conduct, and somehow affects our conduct so that we ean 
not explain it as due to the individual self alone. In ease 
we yield to temptation, if we sin, drop down in the scale 
of actions, we are made more painfully aware of conscience, 
shame, remorse, guilt. Thus conscience, giving us a sense 
of responsibility, shows how profoundly real is moral ex- 
perience. Some try indeed to flee from conscience, lightly 
concluding that if their misdeeds are not found out all 
will be well with them; but the contrast is part and parcel 
or our nature. No less strong is the conviction, among 


The Nature and Scope of Ethics 5 


those who fathom this persistent moral experience, that 
there is a greatest good for the greatest number which we 
might all labor to achieve. 

The most familiar description of this experience is that 
we are aware of two ‘‘voices,’’ one telling us to do right, 
the other bidding us do wrong. Even if we do not do 
wrong, we are aware that we might have yielded. Hence, 
the question arises, Have we two natures that must remain 
two? The moral problem is to make of the diversity, how- 
ever great, one consistent self, to bring order out of chaos. 
Plainly, we must divide our problem, asking: What are 
these impulses arousing into action within us? What is 
the self morally regarded in relation to its two natures? 
What shall guide us in the adjustment? What is the 
nature of the goodness we seek and to which we assign the 
highest value? Are we really free to act in and from our- 
selves? What is the authority of conscience? What is the 
basis of moral obligation? What is the relation between 
these matters of the individual life and the problem of our 
relation to society ? 

Standards.—In all departments of life we find people 
tending to classify according to norms or standards, for 
example, standards in architecture, in the construction of 
railroads, in methods of business, in reference to music and 
painting, in language, in computation, in reasoning. In 
the moral life we seek a standard that we may judge, 
gauge our impulses, weigh our desires, and put an estimate 
on our volitions. For we find it impossible to say that all 
motives are equally good. The moral life is not like a plain. 
The barest act of condemnation, the merest sentiment of dis- 
satisfaction implies a higher and a lower alternative, and 
the higher suggests a highest, hence a scale. We find that 
wrong deeds are not merely lower, and right deeds higher, 
as if they occupied a fixed position in the scale; our judg- 
ments imply that some acts of conduct are of greater worth 
in a scale involving progress such that the greater of today 
may be only the great tomorrow. We seem to be in quest 
of an absolute standard; and not without reason have ideal- 
ists put the Beautiful, the True, and the Good in most 


6 The Basis of Ethics 


intimate relation as somehow constituting a realm of eternal 
values. 

There is indeed a popular theory that the way to be rid 
of an undesirable tendency is to express it, for example, the 
impulse to swear, the tendency to be uncouth, to say any- 
thing that occurs to you, do anything you like, even disre- 
gard law; since this is ‘‘a free country.’’ But experience 
shows that desire is insatiable. We are creatures of habit 
and tend to continue expressing. Mere expression is indeed 
no guide. This sort of life not only fosters selfishness, it 1s 
selfishness. So we need a way to estimate our tendencies in 
the light of their origin, nature, and results. Otherwise 
we would assume that because a thing exists, therefore it 
is right; we might even say, with Pope, ‘‘Whatever is, is 
right.’’ People often try to defend this statement that 
what exists is right. But we find our thought involved in a 
whirl of complexities and contradictions when we try to 
apply this assumption universally, when we tend to accept 
human society as it is, with all its injustice, its hatreds, and 
its warfare. Over against these ready assumptions stands 
conscience calling for a scale of values. If the right exists, 
if values are real, and goodness a fact—this indeed is the 
great truth we have gone in quest of amidst relativities 
which baffle and uncertainties which dishearten. 

Again, the popular assumption appears in the guise of a 
proposition that there is but one thing we ean do, as if it 
were written in the book of fate precisely what desire we 
should express. But our moral consciousness all the while 
puts conflicts before us, with the conviction that the alter- 
natives are real: we feel it incumbent upon us to make a 
choice, and somehow the conviction also persists that a 
choice will make a difference, perhaps for untold years or 
for eternity. We are aware that we shall be held account- 
able, and this would be unmeaning if there were but one 
course to pursue. We are at times left to act on faith, 
make the venture. There appears to be a law over us in all 
these matters. For better or worse, we find ourselves 
choosing. Plainly, much depends on our standard in thus 
choosing, and our standard implies acceptance of author- 


The Nature and Scope of Ethics i 


ity, civil, ethical, or religious. And however we may have 
procrastinated we may begin now to acquire the highest 
standard, as we might in the fine arts seek the masters of 
music to know what the supreme music is. Wherever we 
look we find a relationship implying quests or the ultimate 
standard concerning the Beautiful, the True, and the Good. 

Moral Consciousness and Ideals.—The most appealing 
way to put the matter is in terms of ideals, without at first 
asking whether there is anything absolute about morality. 
If we were to confine ourselves to what is, life would indeed 
be prosaic, as in the drudgery and routine of many occu- 
pations. We know that very much depends on the way a 
thing is done, what we hope to achieve, the opportunities 
for relaxation we have in mind. We are able by ideal con- 
sciousness to change almost anything in life from prose to 
poetry, even labor or work may become ‘‘self-expression’’ 
of which we heartily approve, granted a certain attitude 
which makes it so. Education enables us to live in world 
upon world where it is the ideal meaning that signifies, as 
we pass from history to a special science, as we compare 
economic relations, systems of government, types of belief. 
Love admits us to the world of the heart, and for the sake 
of love we labor, sacrifice, persist; and love as an incentive 
sends us forth into the realms of Beauty and Truth, as well 
as into the sphere of the Good. All these activities mark 
a departure from what merely ests, and in so far as moral 
judgments intermingle there is a transition to what ought 
to be. Life should be for love’s sake, we say, it should be 
made beautiful, truth should prevail. 

If in some sense that which ought to be already is, so 
that moral experience is realization, the ‘‘ought’’ is poten- 
tial in the self or the moral order; and the contrast remains 
between ideal and actual in the given world of experience. 
Then too the moral ideal is in large part a human achieve- 
ment. We contribute to the ideal by meeting life, with its 
poverty or stern necessities, accepting alternatives and win- 
ning victories where the odds are apparently against us. 
The moral life is not a mechanical unfolding. We live 
under an actual system of government where customs are 


8 The Basis of Ethies 


being tried out, where legal enactments are undergoing 
tests. The significant fact is that the ideal element assumes 
the right to rule. We feel the need of an art of life to help 
us work together so that the ideal element shall indeed 
triumph. Ethics comes forward to increase in value by its 
criticisms whatever any practical science or art may already 
have contributed as its share. Action, it is said, is con- 
cerned with the particular which can never be exhausted 
by general principles, example is better than precept, and 
experience better than either.* 

The Ideal Element.—Inquiring more closely into the 
activities of the individual than when we are merely inter- 
ested in describing his behavior, for instance, in the stock 
exchange or the theater, as students of ethics we note dis- 
tinctions between (1) the instincts which prompt man from 
within, the spontaneity which sends him forth to produce, 
organize, achieve; (2) the conditions which life takes on, 
in contrast with its tendencies; (3) the conditions it en- 
counters, the opposition which produces inner struggle and 
which may be turned to account in the development of char- 
acter; and (4) the tendencies of life as made explicit in the 
ferm of ideals, or purposes. We are all dimly aware at 
least that it is the ideal element which makes life worth 
while. By making the ideal element explicit in relation 
to conduct and character, ethics is partly a science but also 
in part directly practical. The love of life which is so 
strong implies this quest for the ideal which is never satis- 
fied with conduct or science alone, but which seeks closer 
ecérdination between theory and practice. If ethics did 
not exist we would need to create it. Whether we have 
previously realized it or not, we have needed to distinguish 
the ideal element from mere utility. 

Quantity and Quality.—The need for our science be- 
comes indeed the greater the more insistently external life 
breaks in upon us, with its attempts to reduce everything to 
measurement, dollars, mechanical skill, and speed. Un- 
wittingly, we are constantly making selections in quest of a 
scale of values which shall set us free from mere mechan- 

1J,S. Mackenzie, 4 Manual of Ethics, p. 13, 


The Nature and Scope of Ethics 9 


ism. Bare fact teaches us that we are creatures of heredity 
and environment, conditioned by the stream of events which 
records itself in the plastic substances of the brain. But a 
life of never-ceasing effort springing up from within re- 
minds us that we can not escape responsibility. Over 
against the sheer play of circumstance is the play of mo- 
tives, intentions, purposes; the quest for balance, wisdom, 
justice; and the demand for progress in the relationships 
between individual and society such that inner virtue shall 
become social conduct. Even when we yield most fully to 
love of pleasure, over against it is conscience, our aware- 
ness of this inner situation, with its ideal element, its sense 
of moral obligation or duty, its intimation that there is an 
end which we ought to pursue. 

We may define the good in a ns Hie way as the end 
we aim at, despite any failure, while the right is a par- 
ticular thing done toward the realization of the good. The 
wrong deed is conduct which conflicts with this standard. 
Ethical philosophers differ indeed regarding the sources, 
foundations and ultimate ends pursued. But our first inter- 
est is to see that moral science is implied in all our conduct 
whether we are aware of it or not. The method to be pur- 
sued in this volume calls for constant appeal to the life 
going on round about us today, so that all statements may 
be tested or verified by concrete analysis of moral life as 
thoughtful individuals know it. 

Custom and Ideals.—That to be moral means in a pro- 
found sense to take exception to that which exists in favor 
of that which ought to be, is evident even in the definition 
of the term from which the name of our science is derived. 
The term morals is derived from mores (customs, manners), 
and came into use to translate the corresponding Greek 
word ethos (custom, habit, usage), from which the term 
ethics has come. The term would seem to indicate that to 
be moral is to obey established customs and usages. There 
is a sense in which this is true. The moral spirit tends to 
express itself in habitual forms, in codes like the Ten Com- 
mandments, and institutions like the Christian Church; 
and to be righteous in a given period of history may mean 


10 The Basis of Ethics 


to stand by these established forms. But the mere fact that 
a custom exists in society or that a principle has received 
formulation in a code, whatever that code may be called, 
however high its authority, is no guarantee that it is right; 
and men have sought for centuries to determine precisely 
what is right with reference to a given commandment, such 
as, Thou shalt not kill. It is not a mere question of fact, 
never an affair of mere origin, not even if the custom is 
said to be established by law revealed from heaven. Blind 
obedience is not ethical. A custom which was in very truth 
moral when it became habitual, under conditions which then 
obtained, may in course of time become allied with purely 
external observances and serve other than moral ends by 
persisting as a habit. It is forever the moral spirit, the 
inner principle of judgment or authority that makes a 
custom moral. If that spirit moves elsewhere we follow 
it, even at the risk of deserting external observances alto- 
gether. A custom becomes moral for me because I relate 
it to my ethical ideal. 

History discloses various peoples pursuing their distine- 
tive modes of activity, their folkways, as in the dance, the 
ceremonial of initiation. Some of these folkways become 
customs, that is, settled habits, mores which are insisted 
upon, while others are not vested with moral authority. 
Out of these social habits come in time moral codes, and a 
code in turn implies a system. So the great moral systems 
of the world are seen in contrast, and one may if he prefer 
begin the study of ethics by investigating the great systems 
to see if he can discover a standard.2 The habit of the in- 
dividual ordinarily harmonizes with the custom of the tribe 
which prescribes rules for its members. But moral habits 
become more specific than other habits, and the moral life 
is more ideal in content than custom in general, with its 
relation to conventionality and good form. We form 
habits for various purposes, the highest of which are moral. 
We adopt customs as we follow fashion, submitting to its 
decrees, responding to its changes. We are moral in re- 


2See, for example, P. V. N. Myers, History as Past Ethics, 1913; 
G. 8. Fullerton, 4 Handbook of Hthical Theory, 1922, Chap. I. 


The Nature and Scope of Ethics 11 


sponse to custom long before we ask why. The tribe im- 
poses its customs on the individual, and the only righteous- 
ness seems to be what the tribe decrees, the only wrong that 
which the tribe condemns. But later the individual com- 
pares custom with custom, refusing to regulate his con- 
duct by the fact that things have always been done in a 
certain way. Although morality has grown up amid cus- 
tom, the moral life tends to become more distinctive by 
calling customs in question. War was long taken as a mat- 
ter of course as the only way of settling disputes or enlarg- 
ing territory, and is only at this late day receiving the erit- 
icism which it deserves. In a sense the individual becomes 
ecnfessedly moral by putting his conduct in relation to 
every custom whatsoever to see if social habit meets with 
rational approval. Custom develops in the fields of poli- 
_ tics and economics, as well as in the spheres of the practi- 
eal arts and the fine arts. Ethics is distinguished by a 
peculiar kind of criticism, even of its own sources and the 
highest moral codes as history discloses them. And so in 
time the moral law comes to be regarded as a constant or 
immutable principle, not dependent on tribal decrees, not 
limited by any group of commandments, by time, place, 
leader, book, nation, or institution. Hence the distinctive 
terms, such as right and wrong, goodness, conscience, duty, 
moral obligation, moral freedom, need to be considered by 
themselves. Ethics, defined as ‘‘the science of values in 
their relation to conduct as a whole.’’ ? undertakes the su- 
preme critcism of conduct and systems, customs and codes, 
individual and social habits, and makes a comparative esti- 
mate of all interests regarded as worth while. 

Moral Philosophy.—Although the term moral philoso- 
phy is in general the equivalent of ‘‘ethics,’’ the former 
term now has different associations in our minds, and we 
note certain changes of thought which have come about. 
Most of us object to the moralizer. The moralizing his- 
torian is to-day antiquated. We permit the dramatist to 
introduce a moral purpose, but it must be by means of the 
art which conceals art. We prefer a novel in which the 

3°W, G. Everett, Moral Values, 1918, p. 7. 


12 The Basts of Ethics 


author’s purpose is so hidden that critics differ concern- 
ing his motive. In early New England sermons were two 
hours long, now we become impatient after twenty minutes, 
No person is so wearisome as the individual who appoints 
himself our mentor. The moral reformer, like the temper- 
ance advocate of old, can secure a hearing only by some 
subterfuge, because his name is not on the program or 
because music is offered as a solace. With good reason 
we have classified many reformers as lacking appreciation 
of what constitutes the fullness of life, or as unbalanced, if 
not bigots or sheer conservatives. Meanwhile, certain books 
on moral philosophy are accumulating dust on library 
shelves. Was the trouble with the reformers or with the 
moral theory? 

The fact is that moral philosophy of a certain stamp is 
out of date even among earnest students of ethics. Such 
philosophy began either with an elaborate theory of the 
universe, which had to be earefully considered before its 
application to moral matters could be made plain; or with 
an equally dry system of theology implying in great detail 
a theory of the moral government of the world, a scheme of 
salvation, and an analysis of various principles based on 
prior belief in revelation. There was little reference to 
history, oftentimes no reference to current moral issues. 
The moral philosopher apparently did his part by making 
the foundations of his science secure. The prime result 
was a forbidding intellectual structure which only scholars 
could understand. This kind of moral philosophy went 
out of date with the coming in of the historical method in 
the various sciences. 

Moralizing.—Those who adopted the old moral systems 
were decidedly rigid in attitude, and the moral ideal which 
was upheld was emphatically austere. It was a serious 
matter to pursue the straight and narrow way, found by 
so few in a world of sinners. Moral indignation was em- 
phatie too, and condemnation in the name of righteousness 
utterly severe. The moral system was imposed like an 
instrument from above or without, intended to produce 
righteous conduct within, whatever the conditions. It was 


The Nature and Scope of Ethics 13 


imposed with august authority which was to be maintained 
at all costs. 

The failure of such moral instruction was partly due to 
over-seriousness, but more to the fact that its precepts were 
put in negative form: thou shalt not. With an excessive 
number of prohibitions went too much management, an 
exacting attitude, often wholly unsympathetic. The moral 
life was made as unattractive as possible. Under the aus- 
pices of the old system people were brought up in knowl- 
edge of what they were forbidden to do, rather than in 
terms of what is right because it brings satisfaction to all 
sides of our nature. Instead of appeals to self-knowledge, 
there was rigid exclusion of a part of our nature as the 
source of evil; hence with prohibitions came inner conflict, 
and the life that was meant to be a joy became a dirge. 

The Moral Reaction.—Only by understanding the reac- 
tion against this attitude, with its Puritanism, allied with 
Calvinism as a rigid system of doctrine, supported by the 
authority of the Church as an institution, is the student 
likely to appreciate the wholly different spirit which now 
prevails. The reaction was a protest against that particular 
type of moralizing, not an objection to morality as such; 
a reaction against moral reformers who did not understand, 
not an objection to the study of human nature. It carried 
our generation too far the other way for a time and led 
to excesses both in theory and practice, such as the substi- 
tution of psycho-analysis (the study of repressed mental 
states and instincts) for moral theory; and the popular 
reaction against obedience, law and order, and against pro- 
hibitions in every form. But in the violence of the reac- 
tion there was a measure of reason, and a larger view of 
human nature makes a return to the old moralizing impos- 
sible. The failure was due both to defective theory, too 
elaborate and too dry, and to imperfect moralizing, impos- 
ing its authority without appreciation of the conditions 
under which the youth of a nation grow into manhood. 
It was assumed that because the system was true all its 
precepts were right, and because these were right therefore 
they ought to be obeyed, everybody ought to know them, 


14 The Basis of Ethics 


and everybody should be condemned who did not do what 
he ought. Our protest is in favor of a radically different 
view of the human mind, as we shall presently see. 

True ethical teaching drives no one away. Morality was 
meant to be a thing of beauty, of eager zest and joy, an 
affair of the fullness of life. If it has not seemed so, the 
fault lay with those one-sided mortals who by mistaken 
views of human nature and a mistaken method made vir- 
tue unpleasant, neglectful as they were of both Greek and 
Christian ethics in their fullness. Our protest need not 
be regarded as a reversion to materialism, as if our age 
were less moral. Many of us are still far more acutely 
aware of the protest against Puritanism than of the real 
purport of the newer morality of our time. It is part of 
our interest as students of ethics to make explicit the ten- 
dencies implied in human conduct all about us, without too 
swiftly pronouncing judgment. Indeed, it is no easy mat- 
ter to penetrate beneath the reactions of a rapidly changing 
sccial period, to determine whether our age is less or more 
moral than any other. 

Morality—The term ‘‘moral’’ is used in popular 
speech, frequently in literature, with a meaning not directly 
mentioned: to be moral is to be virtuous in one respect. 
But morality as ethics employs the term applies to the 
whole of life in so far as man strives between a better and 
a worse. Thus in a sense the whole sphere of custom be- 
longs within the domain of morality; and in certain con- 
nections dancing, dress, manners, business, the theater, even 
the fine arts as a whole come within this domain, and per- 
sonal habits of all sorts come before the bar of social 
judgment. There is however an un-moral or non-moral 
stage of development prior to the time when contrasts be- 
tween higher and lower come into view, before man becomes 
self-conscious with regard to his instinctive tendencies and 
competing desires; and all along the line of his develop- 
ment as a child of nature there may be a simplicity which 
has never known contrast. The term ‘‘immoral’’ implies 
criticism of undesirable motives and modes of conduct, im- 
plies conduct actually approved of as moral and a lapse 


The Nature and Scope of Ethics 15 


from such conduct to a lower level. To be immoral is not 
simply to lapse in one respect, but a man is immoral when- 
ever in the presence of a higher incentive bidding him 
do what his better selfhood judges to be right—to tell the 
truth, be just, kind, generous, loyal—he is guilty of decep- 
tion, fraud, trickery, or anything else that bemeans him. 
By a moral man we mean one who is upright, true to his 
nobler selfhood, one who commands our respect. By mor- 
ality we mean ethics in practice, and from the given mor- 
ality of a people we infer the type of ethical theory. We 
do not judge a people by one virtue simply, such as respect 
for parents, nor by the whole moral code, or the entire 
social life abstracted from the moral theory. Deeds wrought 
in the name of morality differ so greatly from nation to 
nation that we must penetrate many appearances to dis- 
cern what is morally real. So too each generation may be- 
gin anew to judge modes of conduct taken to be most dis- 
tinetively moral. The conduct of today that is slurred 
over may be condemned as the immoral conduct of to- 
morrow. A generation in process of throwing aside cus- 
toms that have concealed the social life of other ages may 
be more genuinely moral at heart, despite all appearances. 

In an absolute sense morality is conduct which will lead 
toward the highest good. Relatively speaking, it is con- 
duct approved by a given social group on the basis of 
eroup experience. We are apt to assume that there is a 
best method of conduct which if followed by all members 
of society would lead to the highest development, one stand- 
ard being best for all stages of conduct. Hence we isolate 
moral deeds and leaders from their historical context, 
just as we pre-judge all virtues as better because they are 
known as Christian, and discount the virtues of other 
peoples accordingly. But it is no easy task to select what 
is absolute about morality, and reject whatever is relative. 

In actual history we find the standards of morality 
changing with the levels of development, and in one nation 
as compared with others. Morality as a social product is 
intimately related to all other achievements, and is not 
intelligible apart from its history, in so far as habits imply 


16 The Basts of Ethics 


folkways, folkways lead to customs, customs receive formu- 
lation in codes, and moral systems give expression to stand- 
ards in classic forms. With the increase of intelligence in 
a nation criticism of custom brings about changes in the 
actual morality, and so the morality of a nation becomes the 
expression of the highest attainments of the nation’s ex- 
perience through a long course of history. Individual 
leaders introduce changes which in modified form become 
accepted by society, while society on the whole endeavors to 
socialize the individual. But to make sure that we under- 
stand the morality of a people, for instance, the ancient 
Greeks, we do not consult the ethical philosophers only, 
but also the historians, dramatists, painters, sculptors, not 
neglecting to ascertain so far as possible the lot of the com- 
mon people. So in endeavoring to verify the great ethical 
principles of the ages by reference to our own time, we 
try to understand present-day life in all its significant 
phases, as we mingle with the throng in places of amuse- 
ment, observe manual laborers at work, listen to social 
groups discussing problems, join sympathetically with fel- 
low-students; read varied types of magazines, the novels 
that people find most typical, also the works on economics, 
history and science which have the greatest influence; and 
while we do our part toward contributing to high standards 
of thought, speech, manners, service, the welfare of the 
community. 


REFERENCES 


Paumer, G. H., The Field of Ethics, 1901, pp. 3-23. 

Mecelety J. S., A Manual of Ethics, 4th ed., 1901, Introd., 
hap. I. 

MurrHEAD, J. H., The Elements of Ethics, 1892, Bk. I, Chap. I. 

SetH, J., A Study of Kthical Principles, 1898, 7th ed., revised, 

1904, Introd., Chap. I. 

Everett, W. G., Moral Values, 1918, Chap. I. 

Dewey and Turts, Hthics, 1908, Chap. I (bibliography, p. 14). 

Mymrs, P. V. N., History as Past Ethics, 1913, Chap. I. 

PAULSEN, F., A System of Ethics, tr. by F. Thilly, 1899, Introd. 

nein ae Outlines in the History of Ethics, 5th Ed., 1902, 

Sp. iy 


CHAPTER IT 
THE IDEAL AND THE PRACTICAL 


Moral Struggle.—The direct approach to knowledge of 
the moral life is found by drawing ever more close to the 
actual contrast between the ideal and its conditions. No 
fact is more characteristic of us than our longing for the 
fullness of life, for whatever we regard as ideal, whether 
in the fields of beauty, truth, or, still more truly, in the 
field of goodness. Yet nothing is more apparent than the 
besetting conditions which make all ideal attainments 
difficult, so that at times we almost despair. At one 
moment we appear to be creatures of dull circumstance, 
finding meagre satisfaction in things as they are. At 
another we are mindful of our ideals, intent upon attain- 
ing certain ends despite any setback. The demands of 
practical life compel us to devote most of our time to 
the adjustment of conduct to conditions, and so existence 
seems to be definable by such adjustments. Yet we live 
in a realm of values to which we contribute by every 
effort to break with mere routine and the disappointing 
past. Thus we anticipate better forms of government, a 
free field for the arts, an improved system of education, 
something like equality of opportunity, the overcoming of 
religious hatreds, and the supremacy of peace and reason 
where war and passion now prevail. 

At first thought this emphasis on values seems to imply 
a certain alienation from the world of affairs. Indeed, 
moral leaders appear to have been characterized by their 
remoteness as much as by their idealism. The prophet is 
apt to be the one who cares least for things as they are. 
He seems to be preparing for eternity. As a prophet of 
righteousness he advocates a standard of thought which 
seems too ideal for this world. Hence he is likely to be 

17 


18 The Basis of Ethics 


regarded as theoretical. Meanwhile, this mundane order 
is so definitely practical that the average man appears to 
have no interest in anything beyond economics and 
polities, and these interests seem to center about the 
struggle for selfish existence. 

The World Crisis——Yet we need look no further back 
in history than the World War to discover the fact that 
there is the most intimate relation between events and the 
ideals for which man is all the while contending. A world 
crisis is indeed a reminder of the truth that we are 
participating in moral experience even when, to all appear- 
ances, we are in complete subjection to material condi- 
tions. 

Some idealists had indeed been dwelling apart from the 
actualities of the world. They had espoused the cause 
of peace with such zeal, there was such a quickening 
interest in arbitration, in a world court, in brotherhoods 
instead of petty nationalism, that another war seemed im- 
possible. The coming of the war was a reminder that 
when a crisis comes it is the ideals which have been 
erounded in the actual social situation that are effective; 
hence that we are known by the lowest level of civiliza- 
tion, not by the highest ends to which we have aspired. 
The war dispelled many illusions for those who thought 
the idea of peace was enough. In the first moment of bitter 
disappointment it was said. that even Christianity was a 
failure. But the second moment raised the question 
whether Christianity had ever been tried out among 
nations. With increasing disappointments came the dis- 
covery that the war itself was accompanied by a moral 
impetus which once more proved how near to man’s heart 
is his ethical ideal. ! 

Apparently, no event in all history was further removed 
from the moral sphere. For was not the war a result of 
mechanism carried to the limit, crushing every obstacle in 
its path, throwing aside every obligation? Not so at all. 
For the summons to the colors in each nation was a eall to 
a moral standard as never before. Hach nation had to 
decide between loyalties, and within the nation individuals 


The Ideal and the Practical 19 


found themselves facing the issues of unionism or patriot- 
ism, socialism or nationalism, ties of intellectual brother- 
hood or ties of blood. To try to be neutral was as definitely 
to wrestle with moral issues as to become an aggressive 
conscientious objector. The more intense the conflict, how- 
ever great the lapse into barbarism, the more the war was 
regarded as a moral struggle to end war, to Insure peace 
and prosperity. In fact, more questions pertaining to right 
and wrong among nations were raised than could be set- 
tled in time to yield a treaty of peace of which all nations 
should approve. Secret diplomacy, the struggle for bal- 
ance of power and the private political quarrel once more 
intervened, and the actual world seemed remote indeed 
from an ethical league of nations. But not even the most 
violently selfish partisanship kept the struggle from being 
essentially a moral contest in which there was vitally stim- 
ulating intimacy between the ideal and the practical. 

Moral Benefits—The moral lapse after the armistice 
was similar to that which visits the individual who is over- 
stimulated for a time by an idealism which ean not yet 
be put into permanent practice. The actual world had 
not by any means attained the moral level assumed in 
order to maintain the armies, secure cooperation at home, 
and sustain unified military command. But it had come 
face to face with reality as seldom in all history. The 
prime result was knowledge of the point really attained 
by civilization, anl such knowledge is moral power. After 
the war, the moral idealist knew where to start to help 
men learn the real causes of the war among the nations, 
not alone among those most at fault. For the inner causes 
were plainly very much deeper than the overt causes, the 
moral issues of greater significance than the external lust 
for power, the insidious commercialism, or the economic 
determinism so emphasized that it appeared to be the only 
actual cause. And whenever the cause of war is thus 
forced home to the inner life we learn that in large meas- 
ure it involves the passions and selfishness of the indi- 
vidual. 

The Larger Problems.—The war so greatly enlarged 


20 The Basis of Ethics 


our horizon that the moral situation became international. 
So again, whatever people said and did was affected by 
the moral trend of things. To some it seemed possible to 
attain moral unity at a bound by means of the League 
of Nations, despite the fact that the nations had not 
grown up to the idealism put on for the sake of winning 
the war. To decline to adopt the larger responsibilities 
which events had put upon us was to try to return to a 
state of isolation which the world had outgrown. Although 
the United States officially declined to join the League, 
individual representatives naturally proceeded on the as- 
sumption that American leadership was a moral fact. 
Hence it was to the United States that the nations looked 
for a settlement of the difficulties pertaining to repara- 
tions, as indeed Americans had taken the lead in the far- 
reaching work of reconstruction. One of the lessons of 
the war may then be called the discovery that we had 
progressed further in moral development than we knew. 
We saw that the moral spirit, operating in and through 
nations, had brought us where we were, despite the secret 
scheming of politicians and diplomats. We saw, too, that 
the war came about for the most part because we had 
made so little effort to secure conscious moral codperation 
among nations, because we had failed to find a moral 
equivalent for war. International problems show on a 
great scale what is true of the individual. We behold our 
own lust for power writ large. We see the consequences of 
selfishness in all its realistic horrors. We realize to what 
an extent the individual, the small social group is coerced 
by hard necessities imposed by dominant groups of dema- 
gogues and war-lords. Thus we are able to put in striking 
relief what are called ‘‘moral forces’’ as contrasted with 
political and economic forces when used for selfish ends. 

The natural result was a demand for more knowledge of 
moral forces, and many of us had to admit that we had 
only a vague idea what moral forces are, or how such forces 
are to be controlled so that war will not be resorted to or 
civilization be imperiled.t. Some writers on ethics have 
1Cf, B, M, Laing, A Study of Moral Problems, 1922, p, 22. 


The Ideal and the Practical 21 


been in favor of passing by all matters pertaining directly 
to the individual, and putting all the effort into a plan for 
uniting the nations under protection of an international 
force.2 The objection is that the nation is composed of 
individuals, each individual is in process of moral develop- 
ment, and the issues which the individual faces can not 
be slighted or hurried over. It would also call for the 
acceptance of a certain type of ethical theory, such as utili- 
tarianism, when many have not even considered the al- 
ternatives. While these international issues best illustrate 
the intimate relation between the forces involved, the per- 
manent solution is not likely to be found by beginning with 
the largest problems. Moral reform begins with the indi- 
vidual and in the inner life. With the individual as in 
the nation it proceeds in so far as the ideal becomes 
grounded in the things of daily life precisely where the 
individual stands. 

The Individual Problem.—W hen we consider the efforts 
of those who have so ardently worked for the abolition of 
war we come to the same conclusions. To single out war 
and ask that it be abolished by itself is to forget that it 
has always been tied in with everything else and is not to 
be sundered from the problems of justice and a hundred 
other issues which pertain to the level of civilization on 
which we live. To demand that the youth of the nation 
sign a pledge never to participate in war under any con- 
ditions for any reason whatsoever, is to neglect the fact 
that our knowledge does not permit us to see far ahead, 
that life is not so simple as such an agreement would imply. 
The significant fact is that the great moral issues involved 
in war have been raised at last, that we need to think them 
out and find a solution which touches to the heart of the 
matter. The real lesson taught by the war was similar to 
that taught by the contest over prohibition: it taught the 
individual how far-reaching is his own thought and his own 
life, how very much depends on what goes forth from 


within in behalf of good citizenship or obedience to law. 


2See, for example, W. McDougall, Ethics and Modern World Prob- 
lems, 1924, 


a2 The Basis of Ethics 


It is out of the question to make the whole moral situation 
depend upon a single issue. Ethical matters always begin, 
when they start seriously, with the individual, with a pro- 
founder study of human nature, with the activities which 
take place in small groups. And the individual can not 
long ignore the fact that a single issue which strikes home, 
such as the peace of the community, the welfare of the 
family, security in religious belief, involves other issues 
no less vital. The great thing is not to unite upon a single 
prohibition, but to acquire a group of principles which 
apply to those issues which are most fundamental. Not 
even the Church can abstain and say that in the future it 
will have nothing whatever to do with war. For the Church 
was partly responsible for the moral ideals which identified 
many of the virtues with war. The martial virtues have 
been in many respects supreme. It is for the individual 
as for our moral institutions to find a complete substitute 
which shall organize itself into what we call civilization. 

The Sphere of the Ideal—There is indeed a certain 
attitude of remoteness which some have maintained by re- 
garding themselves as moral beings living in an alien world 
but free to act according to ideal standards, as if the moral 
order were a domain apart. Plato has been regarded as 
the prophet of this attitude, in his analysis of the laws and 
conditions of the ideal state. When the question arose 
whether anywhere on earth such a state as his Republic 
existed, the answer was that probably it did not but that 
one could already begin to conform one’s conduct to the 
standard laid up in heaven. Thus a moral ideal seemed 
to be a pattern to put before the eye of the mind. It would 
be a misconception however to suppose that therefore moral 
ideals are remote and impractical. It by no means fol- 
lows that moral ideals exist in a realm by themselves, inter- 
esting only to those who think too much or who seem more 
righteous than we are. To entertain high ideals is indeed 
in a measure to dedicate ourselves to an eternal order of 
reality, and there may be respects in which natural law and 
moral law are in conflict. Hence there is a certain inde- 
pendence of attitude which befits the ethical idealist. We 


The Ideal and the Practical 23 


rightly object when an ideal is adversely criticized before 
we have had opportunity to show its value. It is never 
solely a question of ideals that can be directly applied. 
We live for ideals in so far as outward conditions fall 
short. We also drop the cares of daily life to enter this 
or that ideal world of poetry, music, friendly cooperation, 
truth, religion; hence we often protest that the Beautiful, 
the True, and the Good exist for their own sake. Yet the ideal 
is so related to the practical that no science more directly 
eensiders what we value most in either sphere than the 
science of ethics. The idealist is sometimes the most prac- 
tical man in the community. We appeal to him whenever 
a calamity comes, dispensing for the time with sordid com- 
mercialism and partisan politics, as in case of the flood in 
Galveston, when the commission form of government was 
put into effect and five men of principle ruled the city. 
In war-time at least ‘‘the man of the hour’’ enjoys the kind 
of supremacy of wisdom over politics for which moral 
idealists have so often pleaded. 

We may well remind ourselves that there have been many 
Utopian schemes since Plato’s time, dreams of an ideal 
order, a city of God, a kingdom of heaven which might 
have been founded on earth had men not been so worldly. 
To dwell on an ideal seems to be to enter an ethereal at- 
mosphere, as if one were to find consolation for one’s lone- 
liness in the fact that others have beheld a vision of a bet- 
ter state of things too perfect for earth. But it is always 
a wholly practical question to ask just what it would mean, 
for instance, to carry into realization the Christian ideal in 
all its integrity as a system applicable to the social order in 
which we live. In a later chapter we shall consider the 
relation of ethics to religion, and find that religion gives 
scope, adds beauty, supplies requisite incentives for the 
moral situation. 

The Practical—The question what constitutes utility 
is not to be answered offhand. Among other things, man 
is a being whose relationships in the world center about 
economic conditions, and it is natural to urge that education 
should prepare our youth to compete with people who do 


24 The Basis of Ethics 


not stop to ask whether existing methods are right or 
wrong. Hence we find a tendency to drop the classics, and 
put purely ‘‘practical’’ subjects in their stead. It is also 
true that man is a biological creature, and to be practical 
is to compete with those whose patterns of behavior may 
be more subtle than our own. The philosophy of evolution 
is sometimes invoked to sustain this struggle of brute force 
to survive. But to be practical is also to know human na- 
ture better, to apply in its totality what science has taught 
us concerning man, notably the results of psychology chas- 
tened by ethical criticism. Thus our science may lead us to 
reconsider the entire question concerning the practical. 

Recent Tendencies.—However closely we observe the 
tendencies of our age we find the same intimate relation- 
ship between the ideal and the practical which was forced 
home to us during the World War. From one point of 
view this age of mechanical invention and discovery, with 
its evolutionism, is the age of the triumph of matter over 
spirit, of inordinate love of pleasure encouraged by a 
wealth of resources far surpassing those of the age which 
witnessed the degradation of Rome. We note the excessive 
fondness for display, the unlimited love of the dance, of 
joy-riding, the film-play, the daring adventure; with a 
reaction against much that is best in manners, dress, mu- 
sic, In favor of the absurdly novel and strange. Worse 
than that, after the war, with the coming of prohibition, — 
came increased disregard for law, and failure to execute 
justice. In other lands there has been a tendency to revert 
to the epoch of the dictator, while in our own the dema- 
gogue has vied with paternalism in the struggle for power. 

In doctrinal fields there came a partial reversion to the 
days of the Inquisition. New organizations sprang up to 
make capital out of race-hatreds, to coerce people into their 
views of Americanism, to intimidate or ostracize if need 
be. After ages of work for tolerance, we found ourselves 
dropping back to the intolerance of the darkest generations. 
Although our forefathers came to establish freedom of 
speech and liberty of worship, we had to prove afresh that 
free self-expression is a value. 


The Ideal and the Practical 25 


Yet it might be said that these excesses are no more 
strange than those which history records along the entire 
pathway of the moral life. Each generation finds itself 
anew, while new situations enable moral leaders to make 
explicit once more the eternal truths of the ages. Why 
indeed are we restless, dissatisfied amidst these social 
changes? Why so many cries that we must have a new 
social order? Every judgment we pass has another side. 
We first heard that our youth had become immoral, that 
the new woman had gone to excess, that love of pleasure 
was leading us straight to the destruction which fell upon 
the Roman Empire; then we heard about the more splen- 
did morality making its influence felt amid these appear- 
anees. The criticism in behalf of social justice and free- 
dom of speech, the reaction against paternalism, the issues 
rising around unionism in the industries, the contests over 
radicalism in its varied forms, the question of recognizing 
a radical government threatening us with world revolution 
if we did not yield—all these and many other protests im- 
plied the distinctions which have made ethics as a science 
imperative. Everywhere we have heard anew judgments 
regarding what exists, in favor of what ought to be, what 
might be if we would work together with a will in times 
of peace as we worked unitedly during the war. 

Sources of Idealism.—We also find any number of 
people actually trying to do what Plato suggested: to begin 
with ourselves, to set our own houses in order, to approxi- 
mate the standard here and now, without waiting for the 
ideal state. The things that concern us are so rich that 
we need the poet’s vision, the musician’s art, the painter’s 
portrayal, the dramatist’s symbols; what the film objecti- 
fies, what the novel describes, and all as part of that mar- 
velous whole which we call human life, which we seek more 
abundantly. Our reactions are toward that greater reality 
which the moral reformer saw only in part in his over- 
seriousness. Incidentally, we might remark that sometimes 
we rebel against moralizing because in our heart of hearts 
we already realize how strong is the eall toward the ideal. 

In order then to make sure that we apprehend the heart 


26 The Basis of Ethics 


of the moral world we need to keep close to the throbbing 
life of humanity, and we must constantly appeal to per- 
sonal sentiment, to the profound activity which stirs within 
us when injustice is done. We must insist that it is this 
present situation which we are eager to understand, by 
appeal to which we may avoid the pitfalls of the old mor- 
alizing. And yet we shall be compelled to confess that we 
make no headway save so far as we pass beyond this first 
stage of the moral life, by questioning our instincts, exam- 
ining our desires and volitions in the light of various stand- 
ards, that we may in turn advance beyond the surfaces of 
cur age in quest of the permanent basis of morals. 

One side of our nature gives us the problems; the other 
makes clear the goal. It is not that we lack the energies 
which make for ideal ends, but that our life is not suffi- 
ciently organized in accord with moral understanding ; not 
that the universe is lacking in moral efficiency, but that we 
do not grasp its basic principle. Hence the need of con- 
sidering anew the old distinction between the eternal and 
the temporal: we must begin to live more fully and cour- 
ageously as denizens of the divine order. If this means that 
our allegiance is to be transferred from many of the cus- 
toms, institutions and beliefs of our day, the implication is 
that we believe that this inner, ideal principle is the de- 
termining principle in the world of current events. 

Life as an Art.—Havelock Ellis has recently reminded 
us anew that life is one of the fine arts.° Man, he tells 
us, has always found it difficult to conceive of life in this 
way, but a new vision dawns on us when we regard life, as 
the dance, under the guise of rhythm and measure and 
order, the controlling infiuence of form, and the subordina- 
tion of parts to the whole. Indeed, the whole universe may 
be seen as a work of art, created by some Supreme Artist. 
By art in its fundamental sense is meant all practice, and 
even the sciences were once arts of the mind: science is 
measurable knowledge at its growing point, ‘‘the organiza- 
tion of an intellectual relationship to the world we live in 
adequate to give us some degree of power over that 


3 The Dance of Life, 1923. 


The Ideal and the Practical 27 


world.’’* To penetrate back to life and art in this way is 
to see what morality might be for us all. 

Our difficulty is that morality has been discipline. 
Among the Chinese indeed there has long existed an art 
of morality, arising out of a temperament in which the 
art-impulse is all-embracing: ‘‘Chinese life is always the 
art of balancing an esthetic temperament and guarding 
against its excesses. . . . Chinese civilization has borne 
witness to the great fact that all human life is an art.’’® 
So too among the ancient Greeks virtue was beautiful ac- 
tion. But for the Romans it was honorable action simply, 
while the Hebrews never dreamed of a fine art of the moral 
life. Our modern view is derived from the Mosaic con- 
ception of morality as a code of rigid and inflexible rules, 
ordained, and to be blindly obeyed; abstract moral specu- 
lations culminating in rigid maxims, sterile, vain. But the 
valid rule is a creative impulse that is one with the illumi- 
native power of intelligence. 

The Creative Art.—It does not follow, as Mr. Ellis 
holds, that morality is in the strict sense a matter of taste; 
for we shall find that this is only one of several elements of 
the moral ideal. But we may agree that man is an artist, 
his civilization a complex of arts. If art in this sense can 
not be defined because it is infinite, we may at least say 
that art is the molding force of every culture, the reality 
we mean by the imperfect term ‘‘morality.’’® It is the 
creative art of morality which was especially lacking in the 
old-time moralizer who was given over to introspective 
analysis when the great resource would have been action. 
For him there was no ‘‘dance of life,’’ and there were 
probably many repressions. For us, who have caught the 
newer spirit, there is an endeavor toward an art of life 
which will, we hope, enable us to achieve in our way the 
beauty of form and spirit in which the ancient Greeks 
excelled. 


The Larger Moral Analysis—To understand this ele- 
5 Ibid., pp. 29, 30. 


4Op. cit., p. 192. 
6 Ibid., p. 314, 


28 The Basis of Ethies 


ment of creativeness by means of energizing beauty, is to 
attain a broader vision and to realize that we need not only 
to carry on an acute study of the times in which we live, 
by appeal to the most direct experience, observing how 
people live; but we need to examine the evidences of what 
they believe or pretend to believe, verifying in ourselves the 
great contrasts between (1) consciousness of ideals and (2) 
consciousness of what is actual. It may become apparent 
that people demand that one play shall rapidly succeed 
another on the sereen of life because they have not yet seen 
that the self from which they try to escape is precisely the 
self which in another aspect implies the truth they seek, 
the good for which they yearn. 

Our consciences have reached a point where we detect a 
hundred shortcomings instead of the dozen evils which per- 
plexed moral theorists of old. We manifest great interest 
in things mechanical, such as the film-play and the radio, 
and forthwith consider how to utilize it to greatest advan- 
tage. We are no doubt unduly absorbed in externals, but 
consider how sane is our reaction from the old moral self- 
analysis with its serious pretences to virtue, its long-faced 
manners, its self-righteous emphasis on the gravity of the 
situation. Youth has protested so many times that we know 
youth is mostly right. The man of affairs, with his up- 
rightness in dealing with customers and competitors, 
teaches a far nobler lesson than the half-completed mortal 
who goes about reforming the world. Religion too has been 
made too serious and sad. Many of our doctrines have 
been sustained by an artificial psychology. The joy of life 
has often been lost amid stern judgments. 

The Need for Criticism.—It is no less important how- 
ever to remind ourselves that while we should keep close 
to life in its fullness and look for clues to moral values 
amid daily interests in the world at large, our science is 
not by any means elementary but calls for deepening ex- 
perience and thought. Sometimes we must be almost too 
precise, searchingly analytical, highly systematic, and crit- 
ical of ourselves and our neighbors. Every tendency we 

see about us in society has been brought into relation to ethi- 


The Ideal and the Practical 29 


eal ideals at sometime in the past, and the lessons of his- 
tory have become even more significant than when histo- 
rians wrote history and moralized in the same paragraph. 
Many who are eagerly seeking to bring about social justice 
have scareely begun the needed preliminary inquiries. We 
must be fundamental or we will be unable to codrdinate. 
Under the head of ‘‘values’’ we shall need to restore that 
which was forbidding in what was called ‘‘goodness.”’ 
Admitting then, with a recent critic, that much that has 
been called morality is now regarded as idle sentimentality ; 
and that patriotism, duty, glory, honor, loyalty, good faith 
no longer irresistibly attract, but are regarded with cyn- 
icism if not contempt—we still face the old-time issues. If 
sympathy, self-sacrifice, or any other moral ideal we once 
argued for is now being called in question, what then is the 
more rational standard? Although we engaged in a war 
for civilization and found ourselves in a measure ‘‘strain- 
ing after illusions,’’*? we are more concerned than ever to 
find those values which are permanently worth while. Al- 
though the war brought a moral relapse, we are no less in- 
terested in that knowledge which gives genuine satisfaction ; 
we are convinced that there is a right among nations, all 
the more so since treaties were declared scraps of paper. 
How shall we contribute our part toward international 
ethics unless we look more deeply into the sources and ideals 
of our own democracy? Although the representative form 
of government may have so signally failed that we are 
prompted to ask whether democracy is feasible, we really 
believe no less that it is. Side by side with the greatest 
moral failures have come the strongest incentives to re- 
newed action, for instance, (1) in the case of marriage with 
its attendant divorces and the growing conviction that mar- 
riage calls for profounder knowledge of our whole nature; 
or (2) the demand for ‘‘equality of opportunity’’ with its 
need for knowledge of human types and limitations of 
capacity, in contrast with the sheer assertion of old that 
*‘all men were born free and equal.’’ We have scarcely 
begun as yet to consider how to ground moral forces by aid 
7 Laing, op. cit., p. 22. 


30 The Basis of Ethics 


of applied psychology, so that we may remake human 
nature, utilizing the latest insights into man’s deeper self. 

Summary.—The productive clue then is not in theory 
or practice alone, not in ideals apart from the state or in 
mere realism of things as we find them; but in a larger 
view which puts new life into our daily situation. Man 
first has experience, then seeks explanations, proposes 
theories, adopts codes, conventions, formulas and patterns. 
Every code presupposes moral experience. All moral good- 
ness implies natural goodness, yielding content, giving sub- 
ject-matter. Creatures of habit or routine, forgetting that 
our conventions or patterns, our creeds and codes were 
meant to represent life and keep us close to it, we have put 
our stereotypes in place of reality and have actually waged 
wars for them. The resource is to go back to the experi- 
ences to see what ideas are worthy of survival, or, better, to 
regard the age in which we live as an ethical laboratory 
where as hardly ever before in all history every sort of plan 
is being tried out. So too each student’s inner life is a clue 
to the drama he is witnessing. To be ethical philosophers 
in earnest is to make explicit in as dynamic terms as we 
ean find what is being enacted, especially by partisans of 
a bygone age who insist upon ancient stereotypes. There 
are ‘‘eternal values’’ which have persisted since Plato’s 
time, but there are also transient values which men have 
struggled over as if they were eternal. Since ideals of some 
sort are what make life worth while, is it not also worth 
while to make the science of values as vital and inspiring 
as we can? If so, our ethics will not be a thing apart from 
the natural and social sciences in general, will not involve 
hostility toward economies, history, religion or any other 
interest; but will regard all these interests as intimately 
akin. 


REFERENCES 


MourirHeaD, J. H., Elements of Ethics, Bk. I, Chap. II. 
Paumer, G. H., The Field of Ethics, Chap. III. 

Euus, H., The Dance of Life, 1923, Chaps. I, VI. 
McDovueatt, W., Ethics, and Modern World Problems, 1924. 
Laine, B. M., A Study of Moral Problems, 1922, Chap. I. 


——— 


CHAPTER IIT 
THE REALM OF VALUES 


Ethical Judgments.— We have noted the fact that ethics 
implies judgments of value or worth, a quest for what ought 
to be in contrast with what is. Ethics is much more than 
descriptive of the course of history, the appearance and 
disappearance of customs, or even the comparison of moral 
systems. Its judgments involve estimates with a scale of 
values in view, not measurements in terms of quantitative 
or mechanical systems. These judgments are concerned 
with content rather than origin, with ‘‘meanings’’ rather 
than causal sequences. Hence, as we have seen, conduct- 
with its bearing on character is put over against behavior. 
Ethical judgments involve a certain penetration beneath 
surfaces to determine what is real in the light of the eternal 
values. 

The Descriptive Sciences.—We are now in a position 
to see the relation of ethics to other sciences, beginning 
with the descriptive. A descriptive science, for example, 
geology or biology, involves (1) observation and recording 
of phenomena; (2) classification of phenomena into groups 
and series; (3) formulation of the laws and conditions 
under which the phenomena occur; (4) discovery of an ex- 
planatory principle or formula which will enable us to 
account for the phenomena. A descriptive science is con- 
cerned with causal explanation, and is limited in scope, as 
in the ease of chemistry, which starts with the data of its 
special field but is not called on to account for the ultimate 
nature of the various elements which it investigates. A 
thing or event has been explained when (1) it has been 
accurately described so that trained observers would be able 
to verify the facts and their conditions, and (2) causes have 
been assigned so that the law-exemplifying processes in 

31 


82 The Basis of Ethies 


question are understood as having produced the effects de- 
scribed. Thus a striated ledge breaking through the sur- 
face of a New England field is explained, so far as its pe- 
culiar markings are concerned, with reference to the force 
of the ice-sheet making its way across the field in the gla- 
cial period. It is not the province of the natural or posi- 
tive sciences to show why the physical forces function as 
they do. Even in the case of psychology, as now regarded, 
science describes the processes which take place in a specific 
connection only, in relation with conditions of brain and 
nervous system; psychology does not interpret mental life, 
to show the value of this or that type of activity or the 
superiority of one element over others. The normal mental 
life of man is indeed the standard implied. So too physi- 
ology describes the bodily organism with reference to per- 
fect health, and medicine as an art has the normally de- 
veloped organism in view as its standard. In a number of 
sciences there is a passing over into the realm of values. 
But not until it is a question of ethics does science fully 
enter the sphere of judgments concerning what ought to be. 

Interpretation.—The difference between a descriptive 
and a normative science becomes clear when we consider 
the limits of explanation. An explanation of the spiritual 
life would involve an enumeration of the forces which have 
left their impress on character, so that we should have the 
exhaustive description of contemplation, worship, prayer, 
service. But men of science with vision know that explana- 
tion is not interpretation. Human love might be explained, 
so far as its bodily and mental conditions are concerned, but 
no one of us would say the description of love is complete. 
We value explanation less the higher we ascend the scale. 
Some matters we leave as they are. We would rather have 
a loved person near than explain him. Some musie we 
would rather enjoy than know technically how it is com- 
posed and rendered. Lovers of the Bible would say that 
some passages, even whole chapters, surpass in value, as 
they read, any explanation of them. To a certain extent 
we permit literal events to be symbolized, and we see the 
place of parable; but even the most intelligible exegesis has 


The Realm of Values 33 


its limits. If there is a spiritual sense in life, it is a mat- 
ter of interpretation due to insight; and insight, with fine 
discrimination, permits personality to stand forth in its 
own right. Interpretations differ and fall short. Eternal 
truth is greater than the systems of all schools. Reality 
surpasses all prose. There remains the beauty, the zest, 
the joy which reaches on into the infinite. 

Ethical Interpretations.—Ethics compasses this whole 
field. It is in part a natural science. It tells what cus- 
toms have prevailed, how men chanced to group themselves 
and adopt moral codes, and describes actual quests for 
pleasure as a standard of judgment. The literature of the 
natural history of morals is a branch of the subject of 
increasing interest, and recent works have greatly contrib- 
uted to our knowledge of the sources of moral experience. 
Uninspired or realistic ethics remains on the level of primi- 
tive fact. Yet the central questions of ethics begin where 
even the most suggestive description ends, and move for- 
ward to the problem of interpretation. There is, we have 
seen, new moral content in each age. How are we to place 
this content in its setting in relation to permanent prin- 
ciples? How are we to pass from nation to nation, from 
age to age, to discover the losses and the gains, if not 
through a science which at times passes beyond history ? 

The Position of Ethics—Ethics occupies a somewhat 
peculiar position between the historical sciences and re- 
ligions, the natural sciences and metaphysical systems; in 
certain of its types it tends to be naturalistic, is based on 
a conception of organic evolution, but in other types it is 
idealistic, reacting against atomism, fathoming skepticism, 
depending upon rather than rejecting religion, and adopt- 
ing a criterion which marks it off as a distinct discipline. 
Its ‘‘world of appreciation’’ or ‘‘realm of eternal values’’ 
is very far from being a world in space and time. In a 
similar manner the artist seeks beauty and endeavors to 
represent it, praising yet disparaging all visible forms, for- 


1 See especially, L. T. Hobhouse, Morals in Evolution, 2 vols., 1906; 
EK, Westermarck, Origin and Growth of the Moral Ideas, 2 vols., 1906; 
P. V. N. Myers, History as Past Ethics, 1913. 


34 The Basis of Ethves 


ever dissatisfied but as persistently going forth in quest of 
perfection. 

Moral Necessity. A more precise contrast between de- 
scription and an intellectual standard is seen in the case of 
logic and mathematics. When the investigation of thought 
processes passes from an analytic account of what takes 
place in the human mind to a study of the way man ought 
to thing in order to think correctly, science passes from 
psychology to logic and is concerned with the laws of 
thought, the comparison of propositions, and the norms of 
reasoning. Hence there is a resemblance between logic and 
ethics, which in its turn considers how man ought to act 
in order to act rightly, what the moral law is, what is the 
form of goodness. So too in mathematics we are concerned 
with principles which assure right results, apart from any 
particular reference to the concrete facts which give us our 
practical problems. We are accustomed to such abstraction 
in mathematics and we think nothing of it, interested as 
we are in developing the implications of the given proposi- 
tion, for instance, the existence of the triangle with the 
consequences that follow from its precicse nature. Mathe- 
maties with its absolute precision sets the standard which 
all sciences seek to attain, and in alliance with mathematics 
the natural sciences, such as physics and chemistry, advance 
toward the quantitative ideal. 

Ethical philosophers have also responded to this ten- 
dency, and an effort has been made to discover a calculus 
of pleasures, to compare virtue with the qualities of geo- 
metrical figures. But the further the relation between 
mathematics and ethics is pressed the more clear it becomes 
that ethical necessity differs from mathematical necessity. 
There is a respect in which the results of man’s conduct fol- 
low with logical, almost with mathematical precision: ‘‘as 
a man soweth, so shall he also reap.’’ 

There is an ethical theory which undertakes to generalize 
all moral deeds as due to necessary sequences of cause and 
effect. But a moral cause is unlike a cause which physies 
or chemistry describes with mathematical precision. The 
moral law is a mandate or imperative, in contrast with a 


The Realm of Values 35 


law of nature which, as in the case of gravitation, shows. 
how a force invariably acts. It sets up a standard which 
indicates what would be best, and we esteem a moral law 
no less highly when human conduct falls short of it. A 
moral law can be broken, despite its universality. We do 
not find in the actual world of human affairs that justice is 
being bestowed upon man automatically. Nor do we find 
it intelligible to judge human character as if man’s moral 
deeds were mechanical resultants of his conduct. 

Goodness and Beauty.—So too in the realm of the fine 
arts there are differences which are not shared by ethics. 
The esthetic object pertains to the eternal values, and 
there is direct relationship between the Beautiful and the 
Good. But beauty is realized in considerable measure in 
the painting, the statue, the cathedral, the symphony as a 
completed work of fine art; whereas in the ethical sphere 
it is rather a question of progress toward an ideal, never 
attained, changing amidst the pursuit of it, inviting pur- 
suit into the infinite. Goodness is a thing of life or activ- 
ity, made objective to a degree, but also involving criticism 
and the imperfections of everything finite. The judgments 
which are passed in its name or spirit look beyond separate 
deeds, and completed structures, however great the logical 
or descriptive value of the fact. This is particularly true 
in the case of virtues which pass over into the sphere of 
religion, where we come nearer the perfect example and 
realize the shortcomings of any conduct of our own. 

Sources of Value.—Nonetheless the standard of ethics 
is to be sought for by reference to actual history, by appeal 
to literature, through the inspiration coming from contem- 
plation of objects of beauty, and by incentives based on 
the natural sciences. The imperative in fact has its mean- 
ing in our ability to respond to it and do our utmost to 
attain it. It is by making explicit what events have already 
bestowed upon us, as in case of the moral values of the 
World War, that we come to realize the significance of the 
moral law. We are to look back into given history, for 
instance, in ancient Greece, to find the classic types of 
ethical theory. All the material out of which our science 


36 The Basis of Ethics 


has been constructed is present in moral experience and can 
be derived from it anew. Ethics quickens us to realize 
what is potential in the moral self. Hence the quest for 
values is also essentially a process of self-realization. But 
we all stand in need of the science which discloses to us 
what are the essential elements of value. So in a measure 
the distinction between the normative and the descriptive 
breaks down, and we learn that the ideal element for which 
we seek is already immanent in the actual life passing 
within and around us day by day. 

Reasons for Values.—From Plato’s time down it has 
been noted that there is a certain inability of natural things 
to manifest beauty, a falling short which leaves us with a 
vision of beauty as a surpassing or transcendent value. 
So too, justice as such is more than justice done, wisdom 
is an archetype toward which we strive. We are aware of 
imperfections both in the substances with which we work 
and in the products of our hands, in the worker and in his 
method, in all merely temporal attainment. ‘‘Ever not 
quite.’’ There is always a something more, ‘“‘the flying 
perfect,’’ as Emerson calls it, the larger circle presently to 
be drawn around the circle of our greatest achievement. 
The ‘‘dance of life,’’ more than all the finalities of our sys- 
tems, is related to the dynamic element, is creative; never 
static, unless it be in mathematics, 

Human Basis of Values.—Yet values grow out of hu- 
man experience. Man lives to a large extent in his feel- 
ings and emotions, his sensibilities rather than his intel- 
lections. Matters of taste are often paramount for him. 
He is not a ‘‘colorless and passive knower.’’ The self or 
spirit in man is the center of values. The ‘‘mind of the 
flesh’’ leaves us in the domain of things to be eaten and 
done, the wherewithal to clothe and preserve us as physi- 
eal beings; with problems and struggles, with bare facts 
that imprison, processes which enslave, conditions that 
check, a sluggishness that impedes. The ‘‘mind of the 
spirit’’ lifts us above conditions and processes. We forget 


2Cf. Everett, op. cit., p. 19. 
3 Hssays, First Series. 


The Realm of Values 37 


time and space, lose impeding self-consciousness, and plunge 
into action. We attain creativity not only in the fine arts 
but in invention, through creative reason in the sciences, 
corresponding to poetic creation in its varied forms. Our 
creativity extends in fact into prayer and conduct, and 
there should be such a thing as creative morality if there 
is to be a fine art of morals. In this sense ethics is the 
science of creative values on their moral side. 

Lower and Higher Values.—More specifically, the mind 
of the spirit yields awareness of lower and higher. Under 
the first we put servitude to appetites, greed for money, 
the lust of ambition, and lust in all its forms. In contrast 
with these desires we put the whole series of ideal inter- 
ests which make life worth while. The life of the flesh 
makes for ends of its own. These we are able to group 
or classify with regard to ends which call for prudence, 
or bodily well-being; and we are well aware that without 
certain instincts of the flesh we would not continue to sur- 
vive, to propagate our kind, or to congregate with our 
fellows as natural beings. But above thein we put other 
groups of values involving the pursuit of culture in society, 
in literature, in the arts, the sciences, and in religion. So 
the virtues stand forth as goals of pursuit in the moral 
region which we contrast in a measure with the whole 
sphere of lower values. The self in the greater sense is 
the locus or center of all values, with its outlook upon 
things and affairs, the struggle for physical existence, per- 
petuity, and well-being in one direction; and its outlook 
upon the intellectual life, friendship, service, and creative 
ideality in the other. Values exist for the self. It is the 
self that produces by discovering and formulating them, 
as well as by responding to the sensibility or emotion which 
gives them their initial life. The self is in its turn a value, 
most of all through character. And so the self, as we 
shall see more fully in another chapter, is in a way an ideal 
construction or conception. 

The Moral Order.—Implied in the effort to produce 
values and to hold to them above all else is the conviction 
that the structure and function of the universe is such as 


38 The Basis of Ethies 


to render the production of values possible. That is, the 
World-Ground is, we believe, moral. In religious terms 
this would be taken to mean that morality is the God-given 
destiny of man, and in Christian terms the conviction that 
the Christian ideal will triumph. But for many thinkers 
there would still be the question of contrast all along the 
line between the world of description (nature in space and 
time, ‘‘red in tooth and claw,’’) and the world of appre- 
ciation (the moral order opposing its ideals to the law of 
brute struggle). It would not be said to follow that man’s 
moral destiny means that moral supremacy is a necessity 
of the universe: it is for men to work together to bring 
morality to triumph. The moral order is the sphere of 
conduct in which ideals or values are developed and sus- 
tained, in which the highest ends may be striven for and 
realized ; and it is for each of us to persist in our endeavors. 

The Supreme Values.—It is an intellectual necessity 
then to distinguish between what is and what ought to be. 
Some of man’s interests are almost purely matters of higher 
value, as in religion. The higher we ascend the scale the 
more we believe that values qualify reality itself. We find 
a clue in the fact that as values spring from experience, 
and enrich the life of feeling and thought, so they pro- 
sressively qualify the self. We need a system of values 
to complete our thinking. So too we see an infinite system 
growing out of the structure of society and the universe, 
pointing forward to an advancing ideal limit. Even our 
smaller values aim in the ideal direction. "Worship is for 
values which we never think of defining in terms of bare 
precision, but always as pointing forward. Our idealiza- 
tions have an element that persists, whatever the illusions 
of our progress toward enlightenment. We idealize not 
only our loved ones, teachers, leaders, but also ‘‘things,”’ 
nature, our country, institutions, the Church, supremely 
certain biblical teachings and characters; and, whatever 
else we attribute to God, the Father is for us the supreme 
value in thought and conduct, as yielding the test of the 
total scale. The self feels, enjoys, suffers, strives and wins 
in the sense of the progressiveness of which we are speak- 


The Realm of Values 39 


ing, while in its insights the self constantly surpasses its 
own ideal. And so valuation becomes an attitude, which 
Leighton calls ‘‘the most persistent and characteristic atti- 
tude in human nature.’”* 

The Need for a Practical Scale.—In practical experi- 
ence we find that values range all along the scale from 
transitory interests to those pointing forward to the future 
life. Every crucial choice—when we decide on a plan for 
further education, select a subject for research, choose a 
vocation or profession, reject a career or marriage—in- 
volves a test of values. Day by day questions arise which 
bring our scale into operation. Shall I continue at work 
in my study, or leave my books and go to the assistance of 
a widow in distress? Ought I to respond at once to the 
letter from some one in mental distress? Shall I leave my 
regular work to participate in a controversy for truth’s 
sake? How shall I divide my time, my days and months 
to accomplish my chief purpose but also attain other ends 
that will keep me ‘‘human,’’ give me opportunities to for- 
get myself, bring recreation and change? 

Some have thought it possible to arrange a table or scale, 
for the sake of the unity of life, for instance, the table 
proposed by Everett: economic values, bodily values, values 
of recreation, values of association, character values, esthetic 
values, intellectual values, religious values.° In such a 
scale no value is separate or independent, but each may 
be tested by the ideal of the unity of life as a standard. 
Again, values may be tested by their relation to the process 
of exchange in the market, the standard of economic valu- 
ation; in relation to bodily well-being, to the moral life, 
or by the interrelationship of their various fields. ‘‘ Hach 
of the special groups of values,’’ says Everett, ‘‘constitutes 
an independent field for scientific investigation where the 
facts and principles are freely treated without interference. 
Ethics does not dictate the laws of physiology, of logic, of 
esthetics, or of any other science; it accepts them. But the 
special values thus treated, while final within their re- 


4J. A. Leighton, The Field of Philosophy, 1923, p. 471. 
5 Op. cit., p. 182. 


40 The Basis of Ethies 


spective fields, are not final for conduct because they are 
only parts, not the whole, of life.’’ ° 

Extrinsic and Intrinsic Values.—A simpler scheme of 
classification is with reference to values that are (1) instru- 
mental, mediate, or extrinsic; and (2) those that are im- 
mediate or intrinsic. Under the first belong external things 
which have value for consciousness, as means to ends, such 
as wealth, position, manual skill, tools, knowledge of lan- 
guage. Intrinsic values, those realized within the self, 
those which have the coherence of inner constitution, in- 
clude all those things which we pursue without looking for 
their direct practical or external application, such as 
knowledge for its own sake, beauty (its own excuse for 
being).? To love and be loved is the supreme instance of 
such values. For the fundamental valuation is with re- 
gard to human beings, as persons, as individuals, social 
beings: the normal human being desires the companion- 
ship, esteem, friendship or love of some other human 
being; desires the respect of others; and desires to satisfy 
the fundamental interests of his being, to feel and act in 
the ways that express what he esteems his true selfhood: 
hence the ethical ideal of self-realization which we are to 
consider in another chapter. Indeed, the science of ethics 
may be re-defined, in Leighton’s terms, as ‘‘the systematic 
study of these fundamental types of human value and of 
the principles of social organization by which the achieve- 
ment and permanence of these values are furthered.’’® 
Within the moral field there is then a gradation of vir- 
tues, and near the top of the scale such values as honesty, 
integrity, justice, fair-mindedness, active sympathy, kind- 
ness, conscientiousness, the spirit of service. Granted these 
as ends to be pursued, all movements aiming at social jus- 
tice, at the bettering of the economic, industrial, educa- 
tional, and political conditions of man’s social life, may be 
judged as means or extrinsic values. 

Values Spring from the Deed in the Given Situation — 
The Titanic, striking an iceberg at sea, brought opportun- 

6 Ibid., p. 187. 


7See Leighton, op. cit., p. 471. 
8 Ibid., p. 473, 


The Realm of Values 4] 


ities for heroism or self-sacrifice to which individuals could 
respond, each in his way. The causes of moral failure are ~ 
not found within the individual alone, but may often lie 
in the conditions. Man is in process of discovering the 
conditions amidst which values may be realized so that 
each individual shall attain fullness of life. The events 
which history discloses may often be in utter contrast to 
the conditions which we take to be ethically most favor- 
able, as in the World War. Man may have little present 
power over the given social conditions. And so in the con- 
flict between the higher values and the duties exacted of 
him he must create the best values he can. These, by 
common consent, always fall into two groups: they per- 
tain either to the moral efficiency of deeds well done in line 
with what is externally required, or to the group of ex- 
ternal values to which man contributes even when his 
outward life is apparently a failure. Some find virtue 
almost solely through conformity. Others find it almost 
wholly by abstaining, meanwhile doing their bit to add 
to the values of inner peace, the supremacy of a higher 
right. A man ean indeed live in considerable measure as 
a citizen of the ideal state, true to the standard ‘‘laid 
up in heaven,’’ although externally adapting himself in 
secondary fashion to the conditions which social life im- 
poses. And go the solution of the conflict is found by 
conduct in two world-orders, temporal and eternal. The 
ereat problem is to bring the ideal and the practical into 
closer unity. Involved in this question, as we shall see, 
is the conception of goodness to be adopted, the ideal or 
standard of duty, and the possibility of conflict of duties. 


REFERENCES 


PatmeEr, G. H., The Field of Ethics, p. 24, foll. 

Everett, W. G., Moral Values, Chaps. II, VII. 

LeigHTon, J. A., The Field of Philosophy, 1923, Chap. XXVII. 
Bosanquet, B., Some Suggestions in Hthics, 1914, Chap. III. 
Seru, J., Hthical Principles, Introd. Chap. IT. 

Macxenzin, J. 8., Manual of Ethics, Introd. Chap. II. 
Muiryead, J. H., Elements of Ethics, Bk. I, Chap. III. 

Royce, J., The Spirit of Modern Philosophy, 1892, Lecture XII. 


CHAPTER IV 
PSYCHOLOGICAL PRINCIPLES 


Psychology and Ethics—The relation of ethics to 
psychology is very intimate at a critical point. Many of 
the prevalent ideas of goodness and conscience depend to 
a large extent on prior conceptions of mental life, carried 
over bodily into ethics. This is noticeably the case in the 
theory that the good is pleasure, as the object of all our 
desires, also in conceptions of the good turning upon be- 
lief in conscience as a mental faculty. Moreover, the field 
of psychology is very extensive, there is less agreement 
than between types of ethical theory; and it is possible 
to be well informed concerning a type of psychology with- 
out being aware that a profounder view of mental life is 
ealled for as a basis for ethics. In psychology the effort 
often is to keep as close as possible to the surer facts of 
relationship between mind and body, to the neglect of 
data of primary significance in the understanding of the 
self. Thus psychology may be limited to a study of be- 
havior, with little reference to the nature of consciousness. 
Again, new conceptions are introduced from time to time, 
and these may seem more important than the classic prin- 
ciples. Popular thought frequently turns upon psycho- 
logical matters, rather than upon ethical, and these ideas 
find expression in ethical theory. There is reason for 
being very much on guard, lest a perplexity in ethics prove 
to be an unsettled issue in psychology. 

Human Nature.—Current ideas concerning human na- 
ture illustrate the need for psychological scrutiny. It is 
often said that the difficulty in all endeavor toward moral 
reform is in human nature itself. It is human to desire 
reform, but no less human to resist social changes. We 

42 


Psychological Principles 43 


are assured that socialism, for instance, could be established 
if it were not for human nature, or that the kingdom of 
heaven could be founded on earth. But as ‘‘human nature 
can not be changed,’’ social conditions would be as unfor- 
tunate as now. But what is human nature? How well 
do we understand those elements of it which we call ‘‘un- 
ruly’’ in relation to those classified as ‘‘conservative,’’ in- 
volving habit, subject to analysis, and open to possible 
improvement? If we define psychology as the science of 
human nature, how far have we an explanation of traits 
which are said to be unregenerate? Ethics is also a science 
of human nature, but in a more promising sense. Religion 
turns upon our view of human characteristics, and we 
are as likely to borrow our ideas of the human self from 
our religious creed as from some type of psychology. In 
any event, no view of mental qualities or powers is worthy 
of being made the basis of ethics until the presupposition 
has been inquired into that ‘‘human nature can not be 
changed.”’ 

At least three meanings are involved in the term human 
nature as ordinarily used. We note a tendency to err for 
which we commonly make allowances under the head of 
“‘the personal equation,’’ as we allow for the possible 
commingling of a foreign substance with known ingredi- 
ents when performing a chemical experiment. There is 
also a general assumption that frailty involves obstinacy, 
willfulness; hence something more than a tendency to 
make mistakes. Accordingly, we attribute ‘‘sin’’ to this 
unregeneracy of our nature, without analysis to show what 
are the elements of this frailty. In the second place, we 
are in the habit of classifying human nature as eccentric, 
with saving references now and then to the ludicrous, to 
traits which make people both peculiar and interesting. 
In extreme form eccentricity involves duality, this duality 
in a way gives us the whole moral problem, and if in 
ethics we did not expect to gain unity or self-consistency 
where duality now reigns there would be little ground 
for hope of any sort. But there is also a reference to the 
ideal element in our use of the term. We find in people 


4A The Basis of Ethires 


a more approachable side, and as we come to know them 
better, perhaps to admire and love them, we realize that 
scarcely do we understand people at all till we appreciate 
their dominant purpose or aspiration. The first view of 
human traits implies the notion that disposition or char- 
acter is unalterable; the second is at least promising, for 
in knowledge of duality there is hope; while the third in- 
volves the possibility that our characteristics may be in 
part plastic, hence a hope that the ideal element may be- 
come dominant. It has been said that our nature can be 
brutalized beneath the brutes, but that it can rise into 
companionship with angels. Within this wide range we 
all somewhere fall. The ethical view to be made clear in 
later chapters will show that the chief interests in the 
moral life center about self-realization. 

The Social View.—Again, it has been easy to generalize 
human nature as ‘‘selfish,’’ and to fall back on the as- 
sumption that this is because man originally was egoistic 
or self-seeking. Social psychology has undermined this 
assumption. It is no longer customary to start with the 
notion that self-love or self-assertiveness is the original 
characteristic, that the great problem is to know how to 
introduce altruistic motives where only egoistic motives 
prevail. When man first appears in the arena of human 
experience he is already a social being, as much prompted 
by instincts which draw him to his kind as by tendencies 
to assert himself in isolation. Promptings making for 
sympathy, love in its more social meanings, exist side by 
side but with egoistic dispositions and the so-called instinct 
of self-preservation. It is not, as we shall see in another 
chapter, a question of making the difficult transition from 
self-regarding to other-regarding tendencies; but a ques- 
tion of following the two in their long development in 
relation to the social forces known on another level as 
moral. We may then avoid all such generalities as the one 
implied in ‘‘selfishness,’’ a term which usually involves a 
half-truth only. 


1See H. W. Dresser, Psychology in Theory and Application, 1924, 
Chap. XXIV. 


Psychological Principles 45 


Social Consciousness.—Some psychologists overdo the 
social conception of human nature and refer to the group 
mind as if there were a social consciousness other than that 
of individuals constituting a group. But others regard 
this as a fallacy, and show that the only conduct is the 
eonduct of individuals in various relations.2, The phe- 
nomena of the group most certainly exist. Men often 
behave very differently in a crowd, especially when domi- 
nated by a leader capable of appealing to disruptive emo- 
tions; and in so far as people respond to imitation, sug- 
gestion, public opinion, class-consciousness, social unrest.* 
But the social consciousness by which people are actuated 
is the consciousness or attitude, the inner response in 
general of the individual in.a social situation. This is an 
important conclusion, for it sends us all home to ourselves 
as essentially moral beings, each with his incentives, inter- 
ests, habits, beliefs, ideals, intermingling with social re- 
sponses of various kinds. 

The Unconscious.—The most recent conception which 
some of us have uncritically taken over is the notion that 
the ruling elements in mental life are ‘‘unconscious,’’ or 
that there is a ‘‘subconscious mind’’ which in reality domi- 
nates most of our processes, the extreme form of this view 
being the assumption that the soul is subconscious. It is 
wise in ethical theory to avoid these conceptions altogether 
save so far as the unconscious, specifically defined and kept 
within its limits, may throw light on the problem of re- 
pressions.© Our deeper nature thus regarded does indeed 
exhibit tendencies toward internal conflict. The psychical 
‘‘complex,’’ or assemblage of repressed desires and asso- 
ciated mental states, implies a struggle against social re- 
strictions known as taboos. The complex has an ascertain- 
able cause, to be found by the special technique developed 
by Freud and others of the psycho-analytiec school. By 
discovering this cause and making clear its meaning and 
its consequences to the victim of inner repression, the 


2See F. H. Allport, Social Psychology, 1924, p. 4. 
3 Dresser, op. cit., Chap. XXX. 

4Cf. Allport, op. cit., Chaps. XIII, XIV. 

5 Dresser, op. cit., Chap. XV. 


46 The Basis of Ethics 


analyst endeavors to overcome both the inner conflict and 
the perplexing duality resulting from it. The resource is 
the substitution of a higher, more closely unified mode of 
conduct for the lower activity. The extent to which this 
process of ‘‘sublimation’’ can be carried, and its bearing 
on morality as a means of developing character remains 
to be determined. But knowledge of the causes of duality 
means a possibility of attaining freedom, with subsequent 
benefits on the moral life in general. If unity can be 
gained where the unconscious and the conscious were dis- 
joined, the implication is that what was needed all along 
the line was harmonious development of personality. The 
situation becomes moral when it becomes conscious. Man 
as moral is a conscious being. He must see for himself, 
understand. Unity or consistency is a conscious achieve- 
ment, however much one may depend on knowledge of 
activities classified as ‘‘unconscious. ”’ 
Temperament.—Increasing light on human nature is 
being thrown by the study of mental types. Every stu- 
dent of men in public life is interested to note signs of 
the strenuous type, the well-balanced or judicial, the single- 
tracked mind, the more silent or thoughtful type, the emo- 
tional type, and various forms of the will-type.? A new 
classification enables us to place people as by nature either 
‘‘introverts’’ or ‘‘extroverts,’’ that is, those who tend 
introspectively to undue interest in their own states in 
typical ways; and those who are free from habits of intro- 
spection, and more readily engage in social interests. The 
old-time morally zealous person, given over to highly con- 
Scientious examination of motives, morbidly aware of 
shortcomings, indulging in self-condemnation to the ex- 
treme, hesitating to act, was a type of introversion. In 
our age, with its telephones, automobiles, the telegraph, 
the radio, and other devices making for speed or calling 
for great skill, it is far easier to develop in the direction 
of extroversion. But in our extreme externality we tend 


to lose the supreme value of the inward-looking tendency 
6 Ibid., p. 208. 
7 Ibid., p. 136. 
8 Ibid., p. 125. 


Psychological Principles AT 


at its best, namely, its profound reflectiveness or acute 
analytical power. The introvert has something to teach 
the far more common extrovert. One may indulge in a 
measure of self-examination without making such analysis 
an end in itself. The correctives of the old-time habit of 
introspection are today obvious. The ideal moral type 
involves a synthesis of tendencies toward the inner life 
and tendencies to be objective. What one needs is to know 
one’s self, with reference to inherited disposition, tem- 
perament, and character, regarded as ‘‘in the making.”’ 
To know one’s type is to be prepared to achieve the type. 

Efficiency.— Again, the effort to know men better in 
relation to all the occupations in which they now engage, 
to place them according to standards of intelligence and 
mental type, to foster functional service or membership 
in a kind of social organism, is highly suggestive? It 
has been said that if all mental types were known, and if 
we were all rightly placed, there probably would be no 
inner conflicts or complexes. Much of our trouble is due 
to the fact that we are misfits, that we did not discover 
till rather late in life what we could best do. Where there 
are unexpressed ambitions, creative abilities seeking new 
fields of exercise but checked or discouraged, there is an 
inner struggle more or less mysterious and likely to be 
misunderstood. Industrial efficiency might not be a solu- 
tion of the problem. Human nature would still exert its 
love of rule. Yet efficiency lifted to the higher levels of 
human activity in all its phases, efficiency regarded in the 
light of quality, worth or value might sueceed where quan- 
titative or mechanical standards have failed. 

Mental Levels.—Implied in the former disparagement 
of human nature was the assumption that the human mind 
was divided into compartments, in one of which belonged 
all evil desires and tendencies to sin. Hence it was a 
simple matter to classify human nature as ‘‘fallen’’ or 
sinful, that is, human nature was regarded as an abstrac- 
tion from our total selfhood. Modern psychology has cut 
the ground from under all such assumptions so far as dis- 

9 Ibid., Chap. XVI. 


48 The Basts of Ethics 


tinctive faculties are concerned. No instincts, desires, or 
other proclivities are found which, taken by themselves, 
are describable as evil. Man has no ‘‘lower’’ nature as 
such. Instead, there is a complexity of traits, tendencies 
or dispositions, desires in conflict or in process of change; 
levels of development manifesting successive strivings, 
emotional periods, will-supremacies, and later, in some of 
us, reason-supremacy. If we look forward to the rule of 
reason in our nature, it is with the realization that the 
same selfhood is manifested when we pray, dance, drive a 
ear, thrill at the movies, love or hate, serve or scheme, seek 
reason or give our minds over to what we call pure pleas- 
ure. In the long run it is a question of our prevailing 
love or moral purpose. Will achieves unity: we are not 
born with it. Reason seeks or attains consistency: system 
or order is not natively given. How shall we condemn 
human nature, until we have tried out to the full this 
modern view of the human self as in process? 

Fullness of Life.—Light is also thrown by experiences, 
in war-time especially, which have summoned people out 
of idleness, luxury, ennui, inefficiency, into self-forgetting 
service for men at the front. Under such conditions it 
became easily possible to transcend or overcome habit, drop 
class-distinetions, and work as human beings at large for 
humanity in need. So, too, the soldier at the front, aroused 
by patriotism, rose above his accustomed selfhood and did 
what was to be done with a unification of courage and 
energy which showed the possibilities of human nature. 
The situation in the case of the individual was paralleled 
by that of the peoples who put aside even politics and 
national prejudices for the time being, to attain unity of 
military command adequate to meet the need of the hour. 
The psychological implication is that we have great re- 
serves, that we have seldom made the effort we might have 
made had we experienced a sufficient incentive. We may 
then be nearer unity than we suspect. What we have 
needed has been a motive in times of peace equal in uni- 
fying power to the possibility of utter disaster which faced 
us on every side. 


Psychological Principles 49 


Conversion.— While the problem of conversion lics out- 
side of psychology and ethies, it is significant that when 
the experience of religious conversion is described apart 
from any creed which the description is meant to confirm, 
there are indications that the adverse tendencies of the 
converted person’s nature run out, while latent tendencies 
are brought into play.° The implication is that certain 
potentialities awaited an occasion to become actual, that 
the duality or inner struggle was not understood; hence 
the inward strivings, and finally the outcry for help which 
brought response on the part of religious workers. There 
is, of course, much more to be said than this. But conver- 
sion psychologically speaking may throw light on the pos- 
sibility of attaining unity within the self, by emphasizing 
certain traits and permitting others to wane, by learning 
the temperament or type and developing it to the full. 
Emphasis belongs on the dynamic tendencies of the self 
which may be won over to a higher prevailing love; it 
belongs on the use to which a person’s powers are put, 
not on the power itself. Neither the flesh nor the desires 
which are said to spring from it need be singled out for 
condemnation. What is needed is adequate description of 
all sides of our nature, then moral interpretation in terms 
of an ideal of goodness. It is the finer synthesis of traits 
which constitutes ‘‘the new will.’’ 

Value of Psychology.—Bringing together these clues 
from recent descriptions of human nature, it would seem 
probable that increase of knowledge of our total inner 
nature will mean increased powers of moral reform and 
development. But granted adequate description of our 
many-sidedness, with emphasis on a central tendency mak- 
ing for unity, does psychology discover any reason why 
we should strive for this high degree of codrdination? 
Does it give us a good ground for achieving the type? 
At its best psychology may be said to supply subject- 
matter for moral criticism; it does not show why we should 
be moral, what is the basis of moral obligation. Psy- 


10 See, for example, Harold Begbie, Twice Born Men, 1909; Souls 
in Action, 1911. 


50 The Basis of Ethics 


chology does not in fact tell us what the real self is, or 
even describe values or endeavor to explain our conscious- 
ness of the ideal. Nevertheless, the former disparagement 
of human nature was partly due to imperfect psychology, 
and the more adequate psychology of today enables us to 
correct misapprehensions before we enter the field of 
ethics. Uneriticized psychology might leave us with the 
impression that psycho-physical determinism, or the com- 
plete dependence of the mind on the body, is beyond dis- 
pute, that mental life is a mere part of the mechanical 
behavior of the organism. But there are types of modern 
psychology, as there are types of ethical theory. A me- 
chanical philosophy of the universe might in either case 
slip in unawares. Whatever the conclusions of any type 
of psychology, these must be closely scrutinized, lest we 
prejudge issues which belong to the realm of valuation 
rather than to the domain of description. Our present 
interest is to note that description of human nature is a 
task so great that not until recent times has its importance 
been recognized. What our deeper nature is in all its 
hidden recesses psychology is now undertaking to tell us, 
also the way in which it may be tested from the point of 
view of intelligence. But a moral test is very different 
from an intelligence test founded on a prevailing type of 
psychology. The higher the grade of mentality, the more 
difficult it is to rate it by a quantitative scale. Morality 
is qualitative, its judgments begin in all seriousness where 
psychological interests end. 

Need of Criticism.—The standards and conclusions 
which prevail in the ethical field which depend upon 
previous analyses of mental life may involve faulty defini- 
tion, or be due either to survivals of the old-time intel- 
lectualism, with its neglect of mental experience recently 
classified as ‘‘unconscious,’’ or to the adoption of a psy- 
chology chiefly limited to the study of sensations and de- 
sires, to the neglect of the finer discriminations of the life 
ef reason. Ethics should be the corrective of psychology, 
faithful above all to the highest phases of the inner life, 
never hesitating to regard the self as real, as the basis of 


Psychological Principles Si 


real experience. If psychology is unable to tell us what 
the nature of man is in its fullness, it is the province of 
ethics to do so, and by drawing on any sphere of thought 
which shows the function of values. 

The primary difficulty in the usual study of mental life 
lies in the fact that psychology of a prevailing type begins 
with the lower levels of mentality, and is so greatly con- 
cerned to determine the number of original elements, that 
the description is never likely to reach man’s higher 
nature. For ethics it is imperative to know the higher 
nature, whatever is said concerning irrational or sensuous 
elements. But the higher selfhood should never be an ab- 
straction, reason should not be divorced from the irra- 
tional, or conscience from the activities which it judges. 
Will presupposes impulse, desire, feeling, emotion, as well 
as thought; since it must not only have a natural history, 
but tendencies to select from and to codrdinate if it shall 
be explicitly moral. So, too, the conscious presupposes 
even more than the activities which many are now pleased 
to eall the unconscious. 

Activity.—The greatest warning to ethics from a psy- 
chological point of view is with regard to the tendency to 
build a theory on the assumption that a mental element 
is a ‘‘faculty.’’ Language still persistently plays us false 
here, notably in the case of such terms as will, conscience, 
intuition. Any starting-point we may make is likely to 
be questioned by those who point out that we have assumed 
the theory by adopting the term which for us is the 
favorite, endeared as it is by idealistic association. But 
we may avoid difficulties and the habit of judging by a 
name, such as reason or will, if we begin with the term 
‘‘activity,’’ whatever the prior psychological analysis. By 
this term we mean whatever is dynamic in mental life or 
inner experience as given, found; whatever life is implied — 
in those processes which people have in mind when they 
speak of mental powers or forces, when they refer un- 
critically to a sense of effort, to will-power or efficient 
reason. Activity includes the energy which functions in 
man’s instincts, original impulses or reflexes, dispositions, 


52 The Basis of Ethics 


passions, desires; in his affections of pleasure and pain; 
in his love, his aspiration, his critical thought or reason. 
As spontaneity, life as ‘‘given,’’ sends man forth to have 
experience and accomplish, to be curious, analyze, con- 
struct, understand. Regarded in the light of its goals, the 
modes of life which make for highly intelligible ends, it 
discloses reason, in contrast with its initial stages as un- 
reason or the irrational. As will it is selective, intervenes, 
checks or inhibits, and adopts means to ends. It is not 
necessarily lacking in purpose at the outset, since it may 
include an element of striving or desire, as well as an ele- 
ment of feeling and of cognition which, taken in connec- 
tion, tend toward ends or goals. But our activities pass 
through instinctive stages before self-consciousness is man- 
ifested. Our volitional and rational activities presuppose 
prior experiences in which will and reason were implicit 
rather than explicit. As children we begin to be curious 
and to construct without any intention. As adults we find 
curselves intent upon what we take to be spiritual activities 
with a highly discriminative purpose. 

Mental Elements.—It is less important for ethics than 
for psychology to know the precise sources of mental ele- 
ments formerly known as the irrational. Moral activity 
in general presupposes the non-moral. We find ourselves 
in motion, desiring ends, actuated by instincts or impulses; 
which, of course, have had a bodily and racial history. 
Awareness of conflict between incentives becomes emphatic 
in time, and reflective morality supervenes upon custom. 
We are not so much concerned with the fact that our im- 
pulses and undisciplined emotions and desires have a 
bodily basis as with the possibility of wise selection and 
control. We may well be cautious about reading into any 
original activity what is not required by sound ethical in- 
sight. If every activity within the organism has its 
appropriate place, it is for ethics to see what is fitting or 
good in our actwities as a system, when by comparison we 
have agreed upon a theory of the highest good. If temp- 
tations appear, if there is lassitude, there is a natural basis 
for this inertia or opposition, and this natural basis is to 


Psychological Principles 53 


be distinguished from any judgments concerning what is 
called ‘‘lower’’ or ‘‘higher.’’ The will as actually ana- 
lyzed may not then prove to be ‘‘depraved,’’ whatever 
theology may say. The study of our nature from the point 
of view of activity shows it to be in process, as disclosing 
manifold competing tendencies; hence the later problems 
of self-assertiveness or self-love, problems of egoism and 
altruism. Psychology ascertains the facts. It is our own 
judgment which sees in these facts two natures struggling 
within us, each toward its own goal. Knowledge of inner 
conflict is power. The better we know our activities in 
their total connection the more wisely we should be able 
to judge. Meanwhile, we may be most inclined to sum- 
marize this surging, desiring, achieving activity in us as 
eWaELL?? 

Instinct.—From a prevailing point of view in social 
psychology, the instincts are the chief sources of both the 
activity and the specific tendencies of our habits, disposi- 
tions, and desires.1t_ An instinct is a relatively unchanging 
fact of mental structure which endures as a self-identical 
whole. Hence it is that man is by nature social, with 
tendencies later manifesting themselves in parental love, 
despite the fact that man is also by nature self-seeking. It 
is this native equipment with its implied tendencies to 
varied action or expression which makes possible man’s 
multiform development. These native impulses must exist, 
and must tend toward ends, or habits would not be formed, 
and customs would not come about. For our habits are 
not necessarily impulsive. They do not supply the ends 
or purposes for which they exist. But granted actuating 
instincts, and later emotional trends by which they are 
best known, for example, through our sympathies, we are 
able to see how habits and dispositions have come to be. 
All our well-known activities, such as desire, will, and even 
reason, began on the impulsive level. By an instinct is 
meant an activity which functions without experience or 
foresight on our part. Thus a child begins to play, to 
construct, without first being aware of spontaneity seeking 

11 See W. McDougall, Social Psychology, i4th Ed., 1921, Chap. IT. 


54 The Basts of Ethies 


expression in play and without intending to construct. 
Thus man finds himself tending toward both lower and 
higher directions of conduct. When instinct reaches the 
moral level, man is discoverable as a moral being; and a 
typical ethical theory has been developed out of an analysis 
of the so-called moral instinct. 

Desire.—Our instinctive impulses in more specific forms 
are known as desires. It is consciousness added to impulse 
which leads us actively to desire the implied end and to 
take steps to achieve it. Hence desires are distinguished 
as faint and fugitive, intense and persistent, or by other 
terms to denote relationship of interest to object, and the 
voluntary release of energy which works toward the desired 
end.12, Awareness of desire becomes the more intense 
with its frustration, with the vividness of the accompany- 
ing tension, the striving to win the goal. Desire may 
become an obsession or a torment which fills the horizon, 
or it may be moderated in connection with other desires 
and directed to a wiser end. Desires too greatly restrained 
cause much misery; organized and harmonized they gain 
strength, and can be directed so as to overcome adverse 
or erratic impulses. It is plain then that our desires have 
relative values. Sensuous desires tend to inordinate excess, 
as in our unbridled liking for food, drink. Intellectual 
desires are known by the ends they pursue rather than 
by their bodily conditions. 

Desire becomes significant when admitted as a good in 
contrast with animal appetites which know no limit. Thus 
desire for food, exercise, rest, pleasure, is recognized in 
its appropriate place. Judged by its goal it may involve 
what we call a point of view. Thus desire for pleasure 
may be taken as the end for which all our activities exist. 
Seen in relation, it is clear that a man’s desires are not 
isolated but belong to what Mackenzie calls the universe 
of desire, a term which we shall use in various connec- 
tions.** Thus desires may dominate a person in various 
moods, under different conditions and in a different order, 


12 Cf. G. S. Fullerton, Handbook of Ethical Theory, p. 79. 
13 Manual of Ethics, p. 47. 


Psychological Principles 55 


subject to change with passing events and sudden occur- 
rences. 

This terminology is very useful in the study of conflict- 
ing desires, for as Mackenzie shows clearly the real strength 
of a desire does not depend on its own liveliness but on 
the group or system to which it belongs.1* For instance, 
when war is declared, a man may experience a violent con- 
flict between desires making for peace and those likely to 
be set free in great force in favor of war in case hatred 
toward a foreign power be permitted to rule. While one 
of these groups of desires may of itself tend to become 
dominant, the explanation of these tendencies being psycho- 
logical, the other may be made dominant because on a 
moral basis a higher motive 1s introduced. Thus reason 
may become either reconciler or arbiter. Morally speak- 
ing, there is every reason for coordinating the desires which 
may best constitute an eligible system. It is to be noted 
that although desires arise at different levels, no desire is 
in itself necessarily unclean or selfish. It is in combina- 
tion with other desires, and an inferior motive permitted 
to rule, that desires assume adverse forms. Hence as 
Everett says, ‘‘from the dictation of uneritized desires we 
must appeal to a more inclusive purpose, to an ideal of 
spiritual wholeness which comprehends and dominates all 
the interests of life.’’ 1° 

Wish and Will.—Although desire and wish are often 
used as synonymous, wish may be more intelligibly re- 
garded as an effective desire.1° Desires may be transient, 
or may relate to bodily needs, while a wish may pertain 
to an ideal for which we are striving, for which we need 
more favoring conditions. But again wish may be less 
profound or permanent than will. A dominant desire does 
not necessarily eventuate in an act of will, although it may 
break into action in contest with will. We do not proceed 
to carry out all that we wish. It is self-consciousness in- 
tervening with its more decisive considerations which 


14 Op., cit., p. 51. i 
15 Moral Values, p. 220. 
16 Mackenzie, op. cttl., p. 52. 


56 The Basis of Ethies 


makes the action of desire effective, when character is given 
to desires so that they form a worthy system. Hence in 
Green’s careful analysis ‘‘the objects of a man’s various 
desires form a system, connected by memory and anticipa- 
tion, in which each is qualified by the rest.’’ 2” 

Will—tThe will then is not a separate power which 
intervenes between desires and wishes, but is a more de- 
veloped activity present among other activities, including 
those we classify as intellectual, and is not to be under- 
stood apart from its content and origin. ‘The concrete 
act of will is a coordination of various activities, sometimes 
deciding or apparently intervening just because other ac- 
tivities are numerous and perplexing. It may, as Mac- 
kenzie says, ‘‘include many elements that are not in them- 
selves wished, and even elements to which the agent’s 
wishes are strenuously opposed.’’?% Thus one decides be- 
tween political parties, because a decision is a practical 
need, or one settles upon some person to love more than 
others who are no doubt equally attractive. 

In part will is selective attention, and as attention it 
may give heed to an uncertain alternative so as to reinforce 
it at a critical moment. Again, a decision may correspond 
to the release of nervous energy which relieves the tension 
of desire.t® Impulse and desire may then lead the way to 
volition which comes either as a culmination or as a re- 
jection. So too a man’s habits are expressions of his will, 
although will may set itself against habits later judged 
to be ineligible. The ‘‘settled trend of the will’’ is a higher 
term than the ‘‘dominant desire.’’ 

Again, as resolution will refers to the future, near or 
remote, and implies adaptation of means to ends. We 
modify our resolutions to meet changed conditions, but all 
the while giving expression to the settled trend of the 
will.° A resolution is far from being an act. However 
difficult it may be to speak of acts of will without calling 


17'T. H. Green, Prolegomena to Ethics, 3d ed., 1890, p. 133. 
18 Op. ctt., p. 54. 
19 Fullerton, op. cit., p. 88. 


20 Note the examples cited by Mackenzie, op. cit., p. 55. 


Psychological Principles 57 


will a faculty, we must be true to the fact of experience, 
namely, that what is uncritically called a fiat of will, or 
force of will in the moment of decision, is a real item or 
incident, on oceasion decisive beyond all dispute. The 
more accurate statement is that such a decisive moment, 
in which perhaps a weaker desire or motive may become 
the stronger, is the expression of a single principle, is the 
self in action; or what Green calls ‘‘the spirit which desires 
in all a man’s experiences of desire, understands in all 
operations of his intelligence, wills in all his acts of will- 
mares 

Will is seen then in the codrdinating activity now de- 
scribed as deliberation, attention, choice; again as resolu- 
tion followed by act in the energizing which makes it 
effective. Will may set itself against desires in their trend, 
and may ally itself with an ideal almost beyond attain- 
ment. It may be ‘‘the will to believe’’ where all is doubt- 
ful, the will to courage, to success, to make a venture come 
out as it should, even the will to love in instances where 
fidelity to an ethical standard ealls for such effort. In 
relation to the end at which it aims will is purpose, and 
this word ‘‘purpose’’ more than any other term may be 
understood to imply will as essentially dynamic. The au- 
thority of will over desire, popularly called self-control, is 
for the sake of purpose. Such control means regulation 
by the self of the competing systems of desire, so that no 
impulse shall break forth unexamined into action, no desire 
shall be permitted expression without a measure of delib- 
eration. 

Habit—We have distinguished between instinctive 
forces and their regular trends or modes of activity by 
which they become more specifically known. Man awakens 
to the realization that he is a creature of habit, but also 
to the fact that his habits undergo modification to fit other 
needs and purposes. Desires seek habitual modes of ex- 
pression, but some desires may be selected while others are 
permitted to wane. <An effective universe of desire is one 
in which habits are well codrdinated. The more wisely 

21 Ibid., p. 122. 


58 The Basts of Ethies 


our activities are selected and organized the more effect- 
ively we may use habits instead of being used by them. 
There is then a scale of values in habits for the sake of a 
moral goal. Virtue in this sense is indeed a habit, as 
Aristotle long ago maintained. Habits do not constitute 
moral purpose, nor is mere organization of habit with an 
end in view necessarily moral. Yet purpose grounds itself 
in habit to achieve results that would not be attainable 
if it were necessary to perform each act consciously. The 
freest, most morally efficient man may have mechanized 
his life in highest degree, and may be thus free just be- 
cause he has turned over as many matters as possible to 
habit. To have moral insight is to see the value of the 
most complete adjustment of means to ends. Virtue then 
is both a kind of knowledge implying insight and a habit 
of willing which carries this insight into realization. De- 
liberate choice is not all we expect of ourselves. We will 
that conduct shall follow regularly and persistently from 
prior choices. Our conduct takes on incentives from in- 
stincts, that is, from our native equipment. Our atten- 
tion is called to modes of conduct subject to change and 
needing to be more wisely directed. So our selected habits 
make our advance toward our ideal. Even the highest 
habits need to be controlled, that we may preserve spon- 
taneity, seek ideal ends with renewed vigor, avoid being 
too formal or over-precise. 

Intuition.—Very important for ethics is the psycho- 
logical conclusion that there is no separate or distinctive 
‘‘faculty’’ which, ethically regarded, may be called the 
moral faculty, ‘‘moral sense,’’ or intuition. Moral sensi- 
tivity as surely exists as esthetic taste or feeling. The 
same is true of conscience, which is what we usually 
mean by a special faculty or ‘‘sense.’’ But neither moral 
experience nor moral insight implies a power functioning 
independently of other activities. What is called moral 
intuition is an instance of intuition in general. There is 
no ground for assuming that intuition discloses knowledge 
of a different type when functioning in the ethical field. 
Here as elsewhere the mind functions in rapid flashes of 


Psychological Principles 59 


thought, by synthetic insight as well as by deliberate 
processes of induction; and some people greatly excel 
others in this respect. By intuition the mind discerns, 
appreciates, while in the realm of the descriptive sciences 
it starts with matters of fact and often limits itself to 
what is dull or prosaic. There is no difference in kind 
between intuition as (1) concrete, in the immediacies of 
sensation, memory, imagination, or any other instance of 
immediate apprehension and as (2) yielding what Sorley 
calls ‘‘synoptic views of reality.’’ In this its synthetic 
stage intuition is immediately correlated with the life of 
reason. Whether perceptive in the simpler sense, or pro- 
ductive in the case of insight, its activities are subject to 
the usual processes of thought. What we mean by knowl- 
edge given by intuition, in contrast with conclusions ar- 
rived at by self-conscious analyses and comparisons, item 
by item with painstaking thoroughness, is that intuition is 
what Bergson ealls ‘‘intellectual sympathy by which one 
places one’s self within an object in order to coincide with 
what is unique in it and consequently inexpressible.’’ 2? 
That is, by intuition we gain the actual self, real time, 
other selves, the new, the creative, the ultimate cosmic 
principle; wholes, where another type of thought yields 
parts. 

It is needful to guard against the assumption that we 
possess ‘‘an inborn sense of what is reasonable and just,’’ 
as if there were a normal human reason immediately dis- 
coverable as the same in all of us, to be appealed to as to 
an immutable standard. What is innate is a group of 
tendencies which by exereise and development, through 
criticism, yield insights and eventually a standard which 
may be compared with other standards. Our alleged im- 
mediate judgment telling us out of hand what should be 
done and what ought to be aimed at is likely to be a 
result of custom or habit. If by intuition we come to 
see aS in a flash what kinds of action are prescribed 
without regard to consequences, it is because our minds 
have arrived at such discernment, and we are no longer 


22 Introduction to Metaphysics, trans., p. 7. 


60 The Basis of Ethics 


aware of the stages of our thought. We are in the habit 
of falling back on what we take to be intuition to 
justify our actions.2? But when we compare the judg- 
ments of men in terms of their intuitions we find that 
intuition is a variable, does not yield a standard requiring 
no criticism. 

When disagreements arise intuition is put on the same 
basis as judgment. Intuition does not yield infallible 
knowledge of the motives and intentions of others. It may 
not have been consciously derived from other judgments, 
yet analysis makes it explicit. In any case it is dependent 
on the immanent operation of ideas. 

To explain intuition is not however to discredit it. For 
intuition is a guide in the moral life, indispensable in fact ; 
since without the insights which it yields we become im- 
mersed in processes, lose our sense of values. What is 
subject to question is the so-called axiom regarding what 
is right and wrong which is taken on authority, as if all 
men agreed or should agree in the adoption of a given 
moral code. Intuitive certainty whe: claimed as proof of 
a principle which we assume to be final is indeed subject 
to question. But intuition as a process yielding insights, 
creative, inspiriting, surpassing bare prosaic fact, is the 
source of moral idealism. When our analytical processes 
fall short, we supplement them by intuitions beckoning us 
on; and among people who are temperamentally more in- 
tuitive than others moral leaders are prominent. We con- 
clude then in general that psychological principles essen- 
tial to ethics are to be understood in the light of both 
psychological and ethical criticism, and that those mental 
powers which involve the highest degree of consciousness 
are the ones which are most significant for ethics. 


REFERENCES 


MacKkenziz, J. 8., Manual of Ethics, Bk. I, Chap. I. 
SerH, J., Ethical Principles, Introd., p. 38. 
Jounston, G. A., An Introduction to Ethics, 1915, Chap. VI. 


23 See Fullerton, op. cit., p. 195. 


Psychological Principles 61 


FULLERTON, G. S., 4 Handbook of Ethical Theory, 1922, Chaps. 
XJI-XIII. | 

Dresser, H. W., Psychology in Theory and Application, 1924, 
Part I, Chaps. I-VII. 

Green, T. H., Prolegomena to Ethics, 5th ed., 1906, Bk. II, Chap. 


II, Sees. 115-136. 
Dewey, J., Human Nature and Conduct, 1922, Chaps. II, IIT, 


CHAPTER V 
CONDUCT AND CHARACTER 


Moral Integration.—Looking back over mental life, we 
have noted that our activities pass from an involuntary to 
a voluntary stage, as conduct exhibits habit, selective con- 
trol, and self-direction. There are animal wants, appetites, 
impulsive tendencies, desires, emotions; there is random 
imagery, association between objects, habit in native se- 
quences; later there is inhibition, efficiency secured by 
productive imagination, a controlled sequence of actions, 
ordered emotions, moderated desires, and eventually a 
dominant universe of desire. Judgment enables us to form 
estimates, discern values. Conscience makes itself known. 
Thus there is a working together of activities toward a 
desired end. 

This process has been called moral integration. It im- 
plies, not deliberation or reflection alone, not mere judg- 
ment or reason, but actual effort toward a goal as in 
‘‘mustering courage.’’ Fixing our eyes on the goal with 
determination to succeed however great the effort, we 
launch ourselves into action despite cautions to the con- 
trary, adverse criticism from friends, or downright inter- 
ference. 

Feeling.—In the processes of intuition and integration 
there is, of course, an element of feeling. But the term 
feeling popularly used as a synonym for knowing, judg- 
ing, making effort; for pleasure and pain; for all the emo- 
tions, and much more, indiscriminately grouped, has a 
more specific meaning in ethics. Our motives combine feel- 
ings, that is, anticipated pleasure in contrast with rejected 
experiences associated with pain. We seck satisfaction in 
our moral choices. We aim at happiness, which has a 
higher meaning than pleasure. Feeling gives content, adds 
zest, expresses life. Our moral judgments become more 

62 


Conduct and Character 63 


effective in so far as we are stirred, notably when we feel 
resentment, when we are deeply impressed, aroused by 
realization that injustice has been done. Thus moral sen- 
timent or feeling is in some sense a guide to conduct, a clue 
to character; and when prompted by it we are likely to 
proceed more quickly in the investigation called for or 
toward the needed action. Feeling coordinated with desire 
for satisfaction is indeed a safer guide than the mere emo- 
tions, unstable as they are likely to be. Most emotions, such 
as anger, hatred, jealousy, are impulsive; only the few, such 
as patriotism, loyalty, love, are eligible. But feeling has 
a permanent place in an ethical scale. Regarded as the 
test of what is agreeable it is a direct clue to moral values. 
Our problem is to find that ethical ideal which bids fair 
to yleld satisfaction. Moral feeling in this its eligible sense 
is not indeed to be sought for its own sake. Yet secondarily 
the presence or absence of satisfaction is always a test. 

Motives.—No analysis is likely to make a person more 
keenly aware of the contrast between motives than that 
direct appeal to experience by which we know the differ- 
ence between a prompting to self-interest, and a prompting 
to service, involving love to the neighbor. Indeed, most of 
us know our motives so well that we hardly permit even a 
friend to mention them, if we seem to be less true to our 
higher motives than we ought. But by actual experience 
we do not so well know wherein motive differs from inten- 
tion, and the distinction might seem futile at first glance. 
Yet an entire ethical system has been founded on the as- 
sumption that the moral value of a man’s act is solely 
determined by the rectitude of his inner disposition or mo- 
tive, and has nothing to do with circumstances or results. 
When the good is defined without regard to consequences to 
which conduct leads, the will is judged to be wholly good 
in itself, the sole motive is found in the good will. It 
would then be necessary to distinguish in sharpest fashion 
between inclination or desire in all its forms and will. 
Reverence for law as such would be regarded as the central 
principle. 

But we have seen that will must have content, that it 


64 The Basis of Ethics 


reacts upon and utilizes desire or inclination, and is describ- 
able in terms of its prevailing trend and favoring universe 
of desire. Oftentimes the best way to estimate desire is 
not by its origin but in the light of the ends at which it 
aims and the actual results as known by experience to 
which it leads. The moral life is not so simple that one 
‘‘all-controlling temper of mind’’ or love is brought into 
play to settle all perplexities, and set the mind free from 
all consideration of circumstances. 

Intention and Motive.—In both theory and practice it — 
is essential to distinguish between intention, which is re- 
garded as embracing the whole end chosen, and motvve, 
that which influences the choice. Intention is almost the 
equivalent of purpose or the end in view. By contrast the 
motive embraces only a part of the act, although it may be 
the vital part without which the object would not have 
been willed. We may understand a deed in part by refer- 
ence to its results. But oftentimes we scarcely understand 
the deed at all til. we search out the motive and relate this 
to the character from which it sprang. For, among other 
matters, we are concerned with the problem of responsibil- 
ity. Motives embrace native impulses which have been 
directed toward specialized ends or goals. They may be 
hidden, almost unknown till disclosed by a special tech- 
nique, as in psycho-analysis. Meanwhile the reasons given 
pass as an explanation, or pretended reasons may be 
put forth as actual intentions. 

It is well known that many extenuating circumstances 
enter to complicate our motives. In so far as emotions play 
a part a motive may be transitory, difficult to classify with 
reference to values. A man may be influenced by anger, 
jealousy, hatred, fear, pity, and so his motive may be 
highly impulsive. The passions of the mad man or drunk- 
ard may complicate the motive so that the man is no 
longer responsible for his actions. By a motive in the ethi- 
cal sense is meant the assignable reason which makes a man 
responsible for his deed. Again, we distinguish between 
an emotion which, occurring just them, is adopted as a 
prompting to action, and the reasoning by which a man 


Conduct and Character 65 


relates his emotions to his mode of life. Our emotions 
become intellectualized as we advance in rational develop- 
ment. We are often influenced more by the idea of an 
emotion as a motive than by the actual emotion. Thus pity 
may become an actuating principle when coupled with other 
incentives, and pity has been made the basis of an ethical 
theory. 

The Basis of Motives.—A rationalized motive passes 
over into an intention. The interpretation of a man’s 
motives and intentions depends on our knowledge of his 
character. It is impossible to explain a deed merely by its 
motives, avowed or unavowed, as if a motive could be de- 
fined as ‘‘that which made a man do his deed’’; for it is 
through character that the combination of incentives is 
produced. A motive is not merely mechanical, as if motives 
could be accounted for by reference to bodily behavior 
alone. Motives are grounded in both mind and body, but 
our interest is in relating them to conduct and character. 
A man’s motives may seem complex in the extreme till we 
grasp their inner meaning, notably where self-interest com- 
bines with a prompting to serve. In each case we would 
pass almost insensibly from a man’s motives to his inten- 
tions, discriminating with Mackenzie immediate and re- 
mote intentions, outer and inner, direct and indirect, con- 
scious and unconscious.t In each case the motive might 
be regarded as what causes the action to occur in a par- 
ticular way. But we shall find reason to avoid the con- 
ception of causality which implies that a man is always 
pushed as it were from behind and is never drawn toward 
an ideal or end. Our motives partake also of higher val- 
ues. We are drawn or led as surely as we are impelled or 
induced. Desire for pleasure is not always the incentive 
to action. Nor are we always actuated by egoistic im- 
pulses. Impulse in altruistic form may prompt a man to 
a swift deed of self-sacrifice which all observers commend, 
but such an impulse may also lead to an action which all 
will condemn because it took place without reflection. <A 
man may check or modify his impulsive motive by consid- 

1Op. cit., p. 60. 


66 The Basis of Ethacs 


eration of another’s good in the long run. And so again 
a motive may pass over into intention. Anticipating the 
wisest remote results, man moderates his promptings, un- 
mindful of what may be said in regard to immediate re- 
sults, if assured that despite these his ideal will be at- 
tained. Once more we see that the motive is a part only of 
the intention. 

Dynamic Motives.—The moral quality of a deed les 
partly in the motive, partly in the intention. The motive 
yields the dynamic element, while the intention is the teleo- 
logical or purposive element. The one is the spring of 
action, while the other-indicates its direction. Both are 
grounded in character, in which the two have a concrete 
unity of impulsive force and ideal content.2, Much de- 
pends on our conclusions regarding the motives which we 
take to be eligible, notably in the case of the moralists who 
hold that pleasure is the only object of desire. Much too 
turns on consequences which we take to be good. As time 
goes on we are more likely to judge one another with regard 
to consequences foreseen and intended than by motives 
alone. Unforeseen results follow some of our motives. We 
are all the while tracing back consequences which were 
unforeseen and unintended to prior acts which we did not 
at first understand. Thus we grow in self-knowledge, try- 
ing to discriminate more wisely, that we may come nearer 
our goal. We are less inclined to excuse any one on the 
ground that his intention was good. We no longer look for 
motives of ‘‘pure benevolence,’’ sheer avarice or revenge, 
unqualified gratitude or utter disinterestedness. We sel- 
dom meet either a complete rogue or a paragon of virtue. 
All our motives are mixed. The moral agent may be said 
to intend or will all consequences which his prevailing 
motive makes him willing under the conditions to accept.’ 
The solution of the difficulty, when motives and intentions 
seem inextricably confused, may be found by contrasting 
the forces which impel us to act with what Everett calls 
the total value which we assign to an act when performed.‘ 


2 Seth, Hthical Principles, p. 74. 
3 See Dewey and Tufts, Ethics, pp. 251, 257. 
4 Moral Values, p. 106. 


Conduct and Character 67 


Character.— We have already had occasion to contrast 
conduct with behavior, and to point out that man the indi- 
vidual as a ‘‘person’’ is known with reference to the values 
attributed to his conduct. The interests of human per- 
sonality center about what we eall character as the finest 
product of experience, the end for which we exist, that part 
of our nature which persists, as many of us believe, even 
into the future life. Through self-consciousness man be- 
comes progressively a person, thus making more and more 
explicit ideals of character as distinguished from mere be- 
havior. Taken as it comes, behavior yields conflicting im- 
pulses, more or less random or chaotic emotions, besetting 
desires which tend to drive all opposition before them. 
Hence behavior requires the scrutiny of reason and the 
offsetting constancy of will, which is thus another name for 
character. Conduct includes the whole sphere of volun- 
tary life. It reacts on the so-called unconscious, on native 
activities, such as an angry temper, an emotion of hatred, 
an indolent disposition ; and in the guise of will its reaction 
is selective, it organizes, achieves. Conduct, as ‘‘the or- 
ganization of impulses into rational ends,’’ has a unifying 
principle, some central end or comprehensive ideal of the 
total meaning of life.© Character is the prime reason as 
well as the prime result, the peculiar connection and trend 
of the mental and moral activities by which the individual 
is distinguished. Conduct is active in the direction taken 
by the self, that is, self-forming tendencies which respond 
to and assimilate the elements out of which character is 
constituted. Thus character includes modifications of dis- 
position and temperament, sex-differences, intellectual 
equipment, family types, race peculiarities, differences in 
development and expression of emotion and will. Through 
the growth of character one may, for example, become 
aware of a tendency toward undue subjectivity or intro- 
version, and, by cultivating appropriate objective interests, 
become gradually more sociable, out-going or expressive. 

There is also a sense in which conduct may be said to 
produce character unwittingly. Character is produced 


5 Seth, op. cit., p. 79. 


68 The Basis of Ethics 


even though a man does not decide upon all the results 
which conduct is permitted to express. That is to say, con- 
duct is to some extent without self-consciousness, is not 
always attended by a watchful eye. So too character re- 
sults from the influence of events upon us in ways of which 
we are unaware at the time. In this sense conduct and 
character are practically identical. But character is in- 
ner, while conduct by contrast is outer, manifests charac- 
ter. By his conduct, regarded as resulting from prior 
actions, man may all the while learn more intimately how 
character has fashioned conduct, and how conduct has re- 
acted upon character. . Man identifies his character with 
himself, but he sometimes refuses to admit that his con- 
duct is what he wishes to call his own. 

Elements of Character—An act of conduct comprises 
an event and its immediate mental cause or occasion. It 
may be described with reference to (1) the springs of ac- 
tion or motive, the intention with which it is done, or (2) 
the consequences to which it has actually led as a given 
deed. It may be an act of heroism in the presence of dan- 
ger, an act which wins approval from onlookers. Con- 
staney of conduct in behalf of principles or ideals is looked 
for from those whose impulses are so organized that 
rational ends take the place of mere promptings without 
order or system. Hence character as thus manifesting it- 
self in conduct has been called ‘‘a completely fashioned 
will.’’ It is more accurately a union of opposites, an inter- 
mixture of habits,° tendencies, impulses, courage and cow- 
ardice, nobility and meanness, sincerity and deceit, open- 
mindedness and constraint, such that courage or nobility, 
and sincerity or open-mindedness prevails on the whole. 

If a man’s character is relatively fixed, that is, depend- 
ent on heredity, education, his type of belief, mode of 
life, it may also be dynamic, in process, subject to change 
in meeting new occasions. Hence character has been de- 
fined as ‘‘that body of active tendencies and interests in 
the individual which make him open, ready, warm to cer- 


6 On habit and character, see Dresser, op. ctt., p. 387. 


Conduct and Character 69 


tain aims, and callous, cold, blind to others.’’* Habit is 
one of its chief constituents? The dominance of a pur- — 
pose is another element. But it is more specifically the 
moral self in action toward a significant end, and we com- 
monly mean by a man of character one whose moral pur- 
pose stands out above all tendencies to dissuade him. A 
fanatic or miser is a man of character, but we do not praise 
such a man for his consistency. In the strong man singled 
out as an example of virtue there is habitual concentration 
towards the realization of a purpose such that secondary 
tendencies are utilized to maintain a wise balance. Strength 
of will is not necessarily good in its results, despite the 
fact that it implies resoluteness or persistence. <A bad 
character may possess concentration of will. By a man of 
good character we mean one whose purpose is worthy and 
constructive, as in the ease of a statesman whose work for 
his country we approve. Character is acquired by reac- 
tions upon circumstances and through modification of dis- 
position and temperament.® The man of weak character 
permits both disposition or temperament and circumstances 
to mold him; while the man of strong character refashions 
his native abilities and either selects circumstances or re- 
gards any circumstances he may face as an opportunity. 
Unity of Character.—The strong character of a worthy 
sort is highly integrated. We do not expect such codrdina- 
tion from the strong but ‘‘bad’’ or evil character, because 
evil involves inner conflict, lack of integrating purpose, as 
well as excess. As ‘‘a completely fashioned will’’ character 
exists in behalf of purpose. It has a dominant motive of 
a worthy type. Character as a culminating achievement 
is to a large extent triumphant over disposition, tempera- 
ment, the conflict between self-love and love of what is 
noble and true. It may indeed be described in terms of 
the successive victories from the lower level of desire and 
emotion to the higher one of moral coherence in which the 


7 Dewey and Tufts, Hthics, p. 255. 

8 Dewey has defined character as ‘‘the interpenetration of habits,’’ 
Human Nature and Conduct, Chap. II. 

9 These terms are distinguished elsewhere, Dresser, op. cit., p. 128. 


70 The Basis of Ethics 


ideal element is paramount. There is less emphasis on the 
mere prompting and more on the integration of all desir- 
able promptings. A man may be hindered or helped by 
each of the factors which he eventually learns to integrate, 
that is, his memory, his habits, his scheme of life. Thus 
in time a man can utilize an activity which was once a 
mere temper, can advance without being hindered by his 
punctuality, precision or thoroughness, acquired in the in- 
terests of efficiency; can be intent upon his task without 
being over-serious in its pursuit. Many of our ethical 
terms readily suggest either the lack or the presence of 
coordination. The debased, lawless, malicious person shows 
by his conduct that this integrating standard is lacking, at 
least so far as actual life is concerned. But such terms as 
uprightness, integrity, fidelity, honesty, readily suggest the 
dominance of this codrdination. The upright man is the 
whole man, one whose integrity bespeaks honor, virtue, 
purity. Indeed, virtue as thus approached is integration 
on the moral level, is inner command. 

The Seif.—For ethics the self must be real or moral 
judgment, choice, decision, responsibility is a delusion. 
Conduct must have a basis, character must actually attain 
personal reality, control must be for an end. Indeed, each 
of the terms we have been using implies meaning or worth 
for a self, with actual desires, motives, feelings, habits that 
serve an end, volitions that may be codrdinated, intuitions 
which yield values. 

The self is known by the criticisms it passes, by its en- 
deavors to acquire system or order. It is known by its 
ideals, its aspiration to be a law unto itself. Moreover, it 
is in some sense free, is in a supreme way wull, and we shall 
later regard it from the point of view of conscience. The 
self figures in successive terms all along the line, for ex- 
ample, the clan or tribal self, the self known as ‘‘self- 
regarding’’ or as ‘‘other-regarding,’’ viewed in relation to 
self-denial or self-sacrifice. The whole moral aim may be 
described as self-realization. Obviously, everything de- 
pends on our conception of the self. Hence the foregoing 
emphasis on moral integration and purpose as clues. 


Conduct and Character v1 


The Self as Ideal.—The self is discoverable amidst ex- 
perience, by reflection on processes of experience which 
imply interest, selective attention, effort to control con- 
duct for ends. It is a conception rather than an object of 
pereeption ; not a substance or monad apart from the ex- 
perience and thought of which it consists. Noting the fact 
that there are two voices or natures competing within us, 
we infer that however sharply contrasted they may be both 
belong to a single self, although we prefer to identify the 
self with the ideal which we will to realize. The self in 
the more eligible sense then is the element of our nature 
to which we attribute persistent identity, and individuality. 
The self may indeed undergo manifold changes, may over- 
come its dualities and become constant where unity was 
lacking. But within and through its changes a core or 
basis of character persists. Hence the self that wrought 
the moral deed of yesteryear is the same as the self which 
is held responsible to-day, and anticipates a_ bettered 
future. 

Man begins life as a creature of impulse, instinct, vague 
feelings, emotions, tendencies to acquire habits which make 
him their creature; and the natural man would say the 
self is what ‘‘feels.”? Hence the good or the supreme value 
would appear to be akin to sensibility. Looking more 
deeply, man notes a change from sensibility through vary- 
ing emotions to rational thought and control. So the self 
comes to be envisaged as reason or will, arbiter and mas- 
ter. But unity of mental life is an ideal. So the self is 
always in some respects an achievement, integrative, con- 
structing and reconstructing. We know the self as a moral 
being by what we find ourselves doing: passing judgments 
in the name of conscience, aware of alternatives, conscious 
of responsibility, under obligation, in the presence of duty, 
in need of choosing, and held accountable on any theory 
of determinism that has ever been proposed. The self 
seems imperatively real when it passes judgments of ap- 
proval or disapproval, facing many matters on which the 
future will depend. 

The Self as Conscious.—The moral self then is very far 


72 The Basis of Ethics 


from being unconscious or subconscious. A man might like 
to evade responsibility by turning over his moral processes 
to something vaguely called ‘‘the subconscious mind,’’ 
which is said to work out his problems while he sleeps. 
Or he might like to attribute to the unconscious the major 
realities of his being, awaiting the fruitions of his com- 
plexes in their struggle to survive. In either case he would 
be falling back on mechanisms. But it is of the very na- 
ture of moral experience to become in high degree con- 
scious, to demand increasing consciousness, not less; greater 
alertness where ‘‘watchful waiting’’ might be a tempta- 
tion; greater precision-in place of mystic faith that the 
better element will somehow triumph; and more acute 
analysis where dependence on after-processes welling up 
out of the subconscious would bring no definite result. 

If the unconscious exist, it must be brought out into the 
light, notably in the case of half-concealed motives, hidden 
self-interest masquerading as altruism or as sincerity of 
purpose. There may indeed be subconscious after-effects, 
and a man needs every help that can come from activities 
set in motion in the direction of his ideals, and continuing, 
while he is otherwise absorbed. But everything turns upon 
conscious beginnings that are worth while, on giving assent, 
accepting or rejecting, passing judgment on activities that 
survive, reacting on motives which have been repressed. 
The moral self is the whole self, not a hidden fragment. 
Its alternatives may involve utter contrast between (1) 
unity with a divine purpose, and (2) a temptation to re- 
ject such a purpose and cease to be moral. In the light 
of the ideal, emphasis always belongs on the hierarchy of 
activities under the control of conscience. The realities of 
the self can not be described in terms of mere origins, 
present events, unconscious or subconscious fragments, or 
even with regard to ideals unless allowance be made for 
the fact that our ideals advance with our integrating prog- 
ress. We may indeed will to make the self one with divine 
purpose. And so by the ‘‘self’? we may more and more 
mean the self we will to realize, the self as person, as a 
distinctive rational individual. 


Conduct and Character 713 


The Self as Person.—Ethical philosophers put the term 
“‘nerson’’ in direct contrast with the term ‘“‘thing.’’ A 
thing lacks consciousness, is purely objective, physical, 
spatial; a person has that remarkable quality which we call 
consciousness whereby its own activity as subjective is put 
over against the objectivities of the world, vigorously ‘‘out 
there’’ in space, more or less remote in time. Animals pos- 
sess consciousness and their behavior anticipates in some 
respects what we call conduct, but we do not attribute self- 
consciousness to them. Human beings begin life in a dis- 
tinetive sense by becoming conscious; self-consciousness en- 
ters in with awareness of shame, regret, remorse, criticism 
of mere behavior with a sense of dissatisfaction. One part 
of the self begins to pass judgment on another part, im- 
pulses are condemned, passions regretted; and the self is 
compared favorably or unfavorably with others. We know 
that certain acts spring more from the self than other acts. 
In some experiences we feel more free. In others we are not 
only constrained but actually overwhelmed by influences, 
processes, conditions. 

To be a person is to be self-conscious, self-directive, ca- 
pable of moral choice and improvement. As a creature of 
impulse or habit, man accurately describes himself as a 
product of heredity and environment. But as a person 
he finds himself in the presence of alternatives, able in a 
measure to rise and fall with heredity, reacting with or 
against environment. Asa creature he responds to custom, 
takes on tradition, is enslaved by fashion, yields to imita- 
tion or suggestion ; as a person he scrutinizes custom, ques- 
tions even the most sacred traditions, and initiates where 
he once imitated. The moral command in brief is: Be a 
person, be moral in fullness of life; in the presence of 
alternatives choose the one adjudged higher, making of 
yourself a moral being in greater reality through con- 
stancy of character. 

As self-directive man is capable of sin, evil, wickedness, 
vice, or he may choose their opposites. Indeed, he is able 
to sink below the level of personality and become a brute, 
a term of reproach which we hesitate to apply to the higher 


74 The Basis of Ethics 


animals. Hence we employ a group of terms, such as 
degradation, dishonor, guilt, criminality. We find man in 
the higher stages of what we are pleased to call civilization 
more capable of sin, more skillful and cunning in his moral 
evasions and his crimes than in less developed periods. 
History leads us to expect these lapses into barbarism, as 
we call them. Not until the coming of the philosophy of 
evolution was a scientific effort made to describe and ex- 
plain what we sometimes call our animal inheritance. Re- 
cent science has narrowed the issues so that we are begin- 
ning to understand criminality in so far as it appears to 
be hereditary or a disease, and to consider possibilities of 
higher selection. Every advance made by science prepares 
the way for more intelligent judgment concerning that part 
of our nature which may still be regarded as accountable. 
Every great calamity, notably the World War, is likely 
to disclose human nature as it actually is, and so by con- 
trast to show what is needed to make man truly civilized, 
in very truth a person. 

Spontaneity—We have already referred to the life 
which makes itself known in us instinctively as spontaneity. 
The life that is native to us tends to express itself freely, 
as in children at play. We are spontaneously prompted 
to produce long before we consciously direct our forces by 
rejecting some, redirecting others, curbing, reorganizing. 
There are incentives discoverable in us which tend toward 
sympathy, cooperation through division of labor, recogni- 
tion of individual abilities and rights. If we were more 
wisely reared, with intimate knowledge of human nature, 
never unduly restrained, we might keep this spontaneity, 
unimpeded, we might retain our intuitions straight on into 
the fullness of life. Rare people do this in part, showing 
us what man as a racial being might have been. In them 
we see what we might be. The moral life might have been 
spontaneous all along the line of development from within 
outward, without loss of Greek ideals, without Puritanism, 
without war, and without bondage to mechanisms in which 
spirit is subject to flesh. But we are able to say what might 


Conduct and Character 95 


have been only by our growing knowledge of what exists in 
the conflict between the ideal and the actual. 

Creative Intuition. Again, we may restate our results 
in the light of our conclusions concerning intuition and 
creativity. Intuition is a real activity despite the fact that 
it does not spring from a separate faculty, and although 
it has had a history and is partly intellectual. Intellectual 
analysis is apt to leave the mind amid parts, dull or pro- 
saic. Inductive reasoning falls short. Intuition advances 
to a culminating insight and discloses values, yields a 
vision of the Beautiful, the True, and the Good. It not 
only discerns values but creates or contributes them as the 
greatest gift of the larger self. 

The Spirit.—Intuition is thus expressive of what we 
call ‘‘the spirit,’’ when we use that term to mean a higher 
element of the self than we understand by the term 
‘‘mind.’’ By the spirit we mean what is most real or en- 
during in man, that which is intrinsically the man as the 
highest unifying principle of human nature, the principle 
which persists through all the vicissitudes of character. 
The spirit is at once will and reason, love and understand- 
ing, heart and head; the center of productive activity in 
all its forms. We think of the spirit as capable of endless 
development. Intuition at its best is the highest moment 
of self-disclosure in the one direction, and the finest insight 
into the eternal values in the other. Thus the self-activity 
of the human spirit gives us our standpoint and starting- 
point. In the native promptings, impulses and inclinations 
which form the earlier content of character, wherein no 
norm or limit appears, it is latent or potential rather than 
apparent. In the higher volitional life, the life of reason, 
it yields character as conscious purpose, conscience as in- 
telligent awareness of moral obligation, personality as an 
achievement, and discovers increasing tendencies toward 
the fullness of life. Thus the human spirit comes to itself 
as criticizing, imposing limits, selecting, and organizing 
anew all the constituents of the self. In brief, the spirit 
is seen as the locus of all values, yielding what has been 


16 The Basis of Ethics 


called the greatest problem of the universe: the relation 
of mechanism and personality, causality and value. 

As thus regarded, the spirit is not to be described as 
either too intellectual or too sentimental. The term ‘‘moral 
reason’’ might be used in this connection. By ‘‘reason’’ 
as more enlightened than mere understanding, more quick- 
ened than intellect, we mean the understanding or intellect 
chastened by experience, characterized by wisdom, and pu- 
rified by the heart. The finer products of moral reason are 
enlightened motives and wise deeds, conduct guided by 
insight. The implied self or spirit is the self one means 
when summing up the moral ideal as ‘‘self-realization.”’ 
Such realization is plainly no mere expression of the self 
which we originally find ourselves to be. All the above- 
mentioned terms imply the idea of chastening or criticism. 
Hence we may say, in brief, that the self to be realized is 
the ideal self, the true social individual. 


REFERENCES 


Macxenzig, J. §., Manual of Ethics, Bk. I, Chaps. II, ITI. 

MurruHeaD, J. H., Hlements of Hthics,,Bk. II, Chap. I. 

KverettT, W. G., Moral Values, Chap. V, Sec. IV. 

CN Sa G. S., Handbook of Ethical Theory, Chaps. XIV, 

VI. 

SetH, J., Hthical Principles, Introd., Chap. III. 

DrEwey AND Turts, Ethics, Chap. XIII. 

GREEN, T. H., Prolegomena to Ethics, Bk. II, Chap. II, Sees. 
137-153. 

TEN es J., The Moral Life and Religion, 1922, Chaps. II, 
oe 
Dresser, H. W., Psychology in Theory and Application, Chaps. 

WED Xs 


ALEXANDER, S., Moral Order and Progress, 1889, Bk. I, Chaps. 
oT 


CHAPTER VI 
THE DAWN OF MORALITY 


Man and Nature.—There are several approaches to the 
decidedly complex situation in which we find the moral 
life. We may adopt the traditional view that conscience is 
a supernatural gift, the moral law a product of revelation, 
its authority absolute over the pronouncements of history. 
Man as a moral being may then seem utterly alien to na- 
ture, his life in this world one long series of combats with 
forees within and without which can never be reconciled 
with the moral standard. Or, we may find the origin of 
the moral in the non-moral, tracing its development from 
the partly sympathetic, partly altruistic instincts of higher 
animals and savage men through the dawning of custom 
in the earlier stages of civilization. Man will then be 
looked on as a child of the world-order in which he lives, 
cosmic forces and moral forces will not be regarded as ir- 
reconcilable, conscience will not be set apart as a spiritual 
gift which requires no natural content. From a third 
point of view the moral standard may be sought analyti- 
eally by study of man’s so-called moral instinct, his moral 
intuition, his authoritative mode of judgment. We shall 
adopt a fourth point of approach: that the moral standard 
is based on the character and spirit of man, however his 
nature has been acquired. This view will not keep us from 
assimilating the truth in the other positions. 

Whatever may be said in behalf of man’s moral selfhood 
as akin to a higher order of the universe, his nature not 
only requires but actually receives the content which his 
history as a whole gives it. Conduct or character, as we 
have seen, involves the organization of impulses, desires, 
dispositions, previously given; motives, intentions, pur- 
poses ; emotion, feeling, thought, will; choice eventuating in 

77 


78 The Basis of Ethics 


actions; values, a unifying ideal. All these, including 
intuition, have had a history in relation to nature and hu- 
man society. Man’s moral selfhood arises into power 
through interaction between the inner world and the outer. 
The outer, with its mechanisms, tends to determine the 
inner. But conduct also involves a dynamic or transform- 
ing element, a spontaneity which at its best is creative. 

The Original Motives.—Although goodness may be 
taken to be in some sense more than natural, yet the spring 
of goodness is also found within the activities which send 
men forth in their long quest for the fullness of life As 
Hobhouse puts it, human morality rests on ‘‘the antag- 
onisms as well as the sympathies, the corruptions and 
foibles as well as on the excellencies of human nature.’’ ? 
To try to base morality upon instinct would be to find that 
instinct varies with the individual, that it is fallible, far 
from perfect, and is dependent on reason for its standards. 
Hobhouse’s investigation shows indeed that the instinctive 
element in morality is far from being an unfailing power 
implanted by nature in all men to distinguish right from 
wrong: it is rather a name for human character as it de- 
velops under conditions of heredity, human morality being 
as blind and imperfect as man himself. Nor is self-interest 
the only primary and genuine motive. We shall find both 
genetic and analytic reasons for holding that man is by 
nature not alone self-seeking but also altruistic, that all 
phases of goodness have a natural basis subject to the con- 
ditions of history. 

The First Problems.—We have only to revert to our 
own childhood and youth, to find a clue to the succession 
of changes which bring men to the dawn of morality. As 
little children we were under subjection to bodily impulses, 
circumstances, parents and nurses, compelled to obey or 
submit to punishment, and our first moral instruction was 
by rules admitting no exception. Later, came an autocratic 
assertion of the will on our part; then a highly emotional 
period, succeeded by increasing self-consciousness and a 


1Cf. Everett, op. cit., p. 29. 
2. T. Hobhouse, Morals in Evolution, Vol. I, p. 17. 


The Dawn of Morality 79 


fuller awakening of reason. Conscience as a process able 
to interpret its struggles in a measure came rather late. 
We were not by any means ready for moral philosophy in 
our youth. Yet we may have begun rather early to rebel 
against if not to question authority, put off by our parents 
as we probably were when we asked for reasons why we 
should do what is right. At some point in our rational 
development, if we were decidedly reflective in type, it 
naturally occurred to us to seek the basis for the rules we 
were taught to obey: On what authority do they depend? 
By what sanctions are they sustained? What is to pre- 
vent disobedience, save the fear of physical punishment in 
ease we do what is contrary to precept? Is there such a 
thing as moral penalty? What is the ultimate ground of 
the moral order? We ask these questions so late that we 
realize how long must have been the history of man before 
he began seriously to question the moral precepts to which 
he became subject as a matter of course. 

Group Morality—As our own rights and duties were 
very far from being self-imposed in the period when we 
were acquiring sufficient moral experience to begin to un- 
derstand, so in racial history rights and duties were not 
attached to the individual as such but as a member of a 
group whose mandates he had to obey. Students of man’s 
moral history find that in origin all morality involves re- 
lationships with groups. The human character it presup- 
poses is not that of the individual as we like to think of 
him in his fine independence. If there is eriticism it is 
of one tribe by another. Moral obligation in its earliest 
form is a matter of the community. The typical primitive 
community has been likened to an island in a sea of 
strangers and enemies. Man is by nature gregarious, as 
are the animals in which the herd instinct is notably strong. 
So the basis for morality is laid in his social nature long 
before he emerges from the most primitive state. The non- 
moral impulses to secure food, shelter, clothing, which are 
said to arise from purely animal impulses, such as hunger 
and cold, are already social in expression. Man’s first in- 
terests are in closest relation with his group. These are to 


80 The Basis of Ethies 


be followed into their moral stage by keeping in mind all 
that constitutes social life, in the family in its manifold 
relationships, between chieftans, medicine men, or priests, 
and their followers, including the rivalries or animosities 
as well as the love or sympathy. 

In the kinship group one blood circulates in all members, 
the individual acts as a member of a kindred; and it is 
membership in the group which gives the individual his 
rights, which yields the accepted standards, the praise or 
blame, the punishment or reward.’ It is in the social in- 
stinets, reinforced by. sympathy and sentiments growing 
out of a common life, common work, common danger, com- 
mon freligion, that morality is implicit. As we pass in 
imagination from folkways, becoming in a measure moral 
because approved, to custom implying judgments of the 
eroup, an implied authority, that is, primitive conscience 
as self-judgment in the name of the tribe, to the dawn of 
conscious and personal morality, we may then carry in mind 
something like the full context of the moral life, with its 
affinities in hates and loves, sorrows and joys, gentleness 
and wrath, timidity and boldness, and all other disposi- 
tions attributed to man’s inherited structure* Man’s 
whole instinctive life is seen as the natural basis of morals, 
not a certain instinct singled out as ‘‘moral,’’ with an air 
of mystery, and as if this instinct were a faculty. 

The First Virtues.—Thus ‘‘the true starting-point of 
the moral evolution of mankind is to be sought in the altru- 
istic sentiments nourished in the atmosphere of the kin- 
ship group.’’® That is to say, the maternal virtues of 
patience, tenderness, and self-denial are seen springing 
up amid the most sacred and intimate relationships of the 
eroup, also the filial virtues of love, obedience, and rever- 
ence, just as the fellowships of men in hunting and war 
disclose the manly virtues of courage, self-control, and de- 
votion to the common good. The hearth worship of ances- 
tors and the sacrificial meal shared with the gods and spirits 


3 Cf. Dewey and Tufts, Ethics, p. 21. 
4See Hobhouse, op. ctt., p. 12. 
5 Myers, History as Past Ethics, p. 17. 


The Dawn of Morality 81 


are also relationships yielding virtues which are to be of 
great moment inthe moral development of the race. Cus- 
toms and practices of the kinship group not regarded as 
primarily moral take on moral values. Thus tribal influ- 
ences favored modes of conduct which later became known 
as ‘‘right,’’ the opposing conduct as ‘‘wrong.’’ Tradition 
presupposes the storing up of patterns of conduct and 
modes of accompanying belief which have persisted through 
long periods of time. For example, ancestor worship in 
China implied the shaping of customs into a national pat- 
tern, the typical racial morality. 

The Function of Custom.—Custom, sometimes defined 
as public habits of a certain community or class of society, 
involves frequent repetition of a certain mode of conduct, 
and so at first thought it appears to be merely social habit. 
But it is not merely a habit of action. As an expression 
of social will it stands for public habits approved by the 
community, and is sometimes accepted as the ultimate 
standard of obligation. It thus implies a judgment on ac- 
tion, is regarded as necessary, has a binding force on the 
individual, and involves prohibitions. Custom ‘‘com- 
mands’’ or ‘‘demands,’’ as we still sometimes say. It be- 
comes strict, inexorable, decides what is taboo, what is right 
and wrong, what conduct is immoral, as present-day danc- 
ing and dress are sometimes judged. 

These judgments therefore imply rules of conduct which 
are taken to be universal. Guidance of conduct by rule is 
universal in human society. In impersonal terms it seems 
to imply a bystander or third party. The conduct of the 
virtuous, crystallized as custom, is handed down in regular 
succession. Thus the conduct of the individual leader be- 
comes generalized, and generality becomes the most salient 
feature of custom.® The conceptions handed down become 
sccial tradition, the dominant factor in the regulation of 
human conduct; custom makes mutual understanding pos- 
sible, that is, reciprocity, which Hobhouse terms ‘‘the vital 
principle of society.’? The two poles between which we 


6 See Westermarck, The Origin and Development of the Moral 
Ideas, Vol. II, p. 120. 


82 The Basis of Ethics 


move are then, individual impulse and social tradition. To 
transgress custom is to call forth public indignation, and 
so the breach of custom brings its own penalty, and a direct 
connection is seen between an evil influence and its result- 
ant misdeed. In relation to such influences the trespass 
may be held to offend a certain spirit. Later, the notion 
of ‘‘an inherent retribution following as an automatic con- 
sequence of the wrong act’’ still further generalizes the 
deed.?7 Thus is seen the dawning of moral feeling in a 
simple way, namely, by attributing malefic quality to the 
bad act itself. Hobhouse thinks that in considerable meas- 
ure wrong-doing is still conceived magically rather than 
ethically, for example, when a deed is marked by a taboo, 
as in the case of a woman stamped once for all by the 
scarlet letter, or the prison-taint in the case of a man. 
Levels of Development.—lIt is the generality implied 
that concerns us, since we here find the beginnings of rec- 
ognition of law, and, in the self-judgments in the name of 
the tribe, dawnings of conscience. Externally this recog- 
nition of conscience may mean little more than the preser- 
vation of modes of conduct favorable to the welfare of the 
tribe. But awareness of authority is also there. Implicitly 
actions are judged by character. Positive law becomes the 
moral standard, and then more specifically moral law. 
Dewey and Tufts distinguish three levels in the process: 
(1) conduct arising from instincts and fundamental needs; 
(2) conduct regulated by standards of society, for some 
more or less conscious end involving the social welfare (cus- 
tom); (3) conduct regulated by a standard which is both 
social and rational, examined and criticized (conscience) .® 
Experience on the level of conscience means: (1) collision 
between the authority and interests of the group, and the 
independence and private interests of the individual; (2) 
collision between order and progress, habit and reforma- 
tion.? Hence come about the problems of individualism, of 
personal morality in relation to group-morality, the stage 
7 See Hobhouse, op. cit., Vol. II, p. 53. 


8 Op. cit., p. 38. 
9 Op. ctt., p. 74. 


The Dawn of Morality 83 


in which we still find ourselves to a great extent; since ‘‘we 
do not any of us think out all of our standards, weigh 
independently our values, make all our choices in a rational 
manner, or form our characters by following a clearly con- 
ceived purpose.’’ 2° 

Conventionality.—That this is so we realize when we 
consider to what a large extent we are still ruled by con- 
ventions. The basis of most of the customs we observe is 
public opinion within our social class or organization. 
*“Good form’’ observed in a certain grade of society admits 
us to that grade, if we possess the other qualifications. The 
individual, known as ‘‘well-bred,’’ as a gentleman or lady, 
maintains standards of etiquette, politeness, or kindness. 
Wealth is sometimes the standard. Sometimes it is intel- 
lectual ability or rank. Ostracism is feared if one seriously 
fail to maintain the standard. We well know that stand- 
ards vary with groups, as with races or nations. The con- 
ventions may be in high degree formal, even superficial 
or external. They are not necessarily moral. Yet many 
of the customs which we regard lightly were once matters 
of moral importance in the stage of society in which man- 
ners and morals were not distinguished. We now see that 
fashion dictates, imitation influences habit, suggestion en- 
ters in, custom decrees or taboos, conventionality insists, 
and conscience accepts or rejects, where once simple cus- 
tom reigned supreme. The change came about with the 
questioning of the authority attributed to custom, the word 
of the chieftan, the decision of the priest or the command 
of the king. When conscience is substituted for custom, 
and moral principles for external rules, human conduct 
becomes reflective, attains the moral level. Man questions, 
seeks the whys and wherefores to the extent that he becomes 
individual. Custom, with its tendency to be static or con- 
servative, is imposed by external authority, that of a per- 
son, book, or system; and it is thus put beyond question. 
But conscience is at its best dynamic or creative; it ventures 
to question any authority whatsoever, seeking the higher 


10 [bid., p. 174, 


84. The Basis of Ethics 


law which we call moral, not dependent on creed, time, 
place, institution, or book. 

Development of Authority.—It is important to note the 
coming in of authority as a factor, for we then see the 
place of experience in relation to the creeds, formulas, sys- 
tems, which have imposed themselves on experience. The 
process appears at first as perfectly simple and desirable. 
The customary experiences of the tribe, yielding patterns 
of conduct, naturally lead to tradition ; precepts are handed 
dewn, patterns are conserved, and persist through long 
periods of time. Then a moral leader appears who gives 
the accumulated precepts the classic forms which hold for 
centuries. Thus Confucius established moral types for the 
Chinese, and among other nations the types were given 
formulation in the Laws of Manu, the Code of Hammurabi, 
the moral systems of Zoroaster and other national leaders. 
Thus too Moses was known as law-giver among the Hebrews. 
The merely civil traditional precept, hitherto subject to the 
mutations of time, not yet static, or possessing authority 
attributed to one person or enclosed in a definite system, 
becomes the revealed or divine principle, with its heavenly 
sanction. The formulated code of morals is then the object 
of reverence rather than the moral spirit which had more 
or less freely expressed itself according to need. Crystal- 
lization in the form of traditional laws to which special 
authority is attributed leads in time to written records for 
the preservation of the sacred formulas, to the appoint- 
ment of officials to care for the records, to expound and 
defend the system. Eventually the formulas are likely to 
be revered above either the moral experiences of the race 
through which they have been developed or the present 
experiences of society in its effort to be true to tradition. 
Thus conservatism comes into full power. The authority 
which might have been attributed to moral reason is vested 
in the system. It then becomes extremely difficult even for 
the highly enlightened to distinguish authority from its 
sources, to see in what sense morality is a matter of life 
or art instead of a matter of creed or institution. It is 
through the formal element that the given type of morality 


The Dawn of Morality 85 


comes to exercise authority over the elements of feeling or 
experience, and through the persistence of this formal ele- 
ment the nation maintains its authority through successive 
generations, and prepares the way for its decline when the 
national life becomes wholly limited by vested authority. 

Moral Evolution——Among peoples where priestly rule 
was not predominant moral ideas had a freer development. 
In China and India philosophical systems appeared. In 
Greece the period of moral maxims, traditional teachings, 
and myths concerning the gods gave place to a philosophi- 
eal period which culminated in the idealism of Plato. Aris- 
totle, to whom we owe the idea of ethics as a science, whose 
Ethics is still one of the greatest works on the subject, is 
free from the traditions and authorities which imposed their 
forms on morality. It is among the Hebrews that we find 
the typical instance of dogma taking the place of free de- 
velopment. In modern times we have all types: conven- 
tionality ruling over all, traditional morality separated 
from religion, moral codes in utter subjection to ecclesi- 
astical authority, naturalistic ethics, and ethics founded on 
philosophical idealism. A comparison of moral systems 
and codes discloses the fact that moral experience gets 
itself summarized after a time in the form of maxims, 
many of which persist and are highly revered to-day; in 
commandments containing precepts or prohibitions; and in 
theories of the good which tend to fall into a few prevail- 
ing types. It is possible to separate out the ethical ele- 
ment, especially in the case of the great peoples, and dis- 
cern its laws and tendencies. This element is remarkably 
persistent, and manages to survive through a long success- 
sion of changes in custom, rulership, priest-craft, and 
dogma. Hobhouse notes, for example, certain stages 
through which man’s ideas passed with regard to sin. In 
an early period people washed away their sins with magic 
purges or swore them off with incantations and formulas. 
Later they bargained with the gods and offered a bull or 
aram. Then, with the coming in of the ethical stage, God 
is conceived of as caring neither for gifts nor for cere- 

11 Op. cit., Vol. II, p. 123. 


86 The Basis of Ethics 


monial adulation, but for repentance and change of heart; 
and so ceremonies lose their magical effect. This brings 
the development of thought to the period of ethical mono- 
theism. 

So too Myers, in tracing the causes which determine and 
modify the moral type, follows the development of cor- 
porate consciousness from the stage of the kinship group, 
noting the effect of ancestor worship, the moralizing of the 
character of the gods, the period of custom as law-giver, 
the influence of ideas of revenge and the blood feud, the 
beginnings of inter-tribal morality, the results of changes 
in civilization, the power of the moral exemplar, the part 
played by feudalism (in Japan), the effect of class moral- 
ity (in India), of dualism in Persia, and the idea of God 
among the Hebrews.12, The command, ‘‘Thou shalt not 
kill,’? means at one period that the savage shall not slay 
a kinsman. So too lying depends on tribal or social con- 
ditions, for the prevalence of a double moral standard, 
which we know as a survival, is very ancient. It may bea 
praiseworthy exploit to steal from strangers, but a crime 
to steal from the members of one’s own group. Confucius 
had entire confidence in the goodness of human nature, and 
so the moral doctrines which were made classic by him took 
their clue from this belief in the natural goodness of man. 
Mencius, his greatest disciple, said, ‘‘ The tendency of man’s 
nature to good is like the tendency of water to flow down- 
wards. ’’ 48 

Prevailing Conceptions.—In the world of Christian 
thought moral teachings were for centuries dominated by 
the view that. man’s nature is by heredity corrupt, with 
proneness to evil. If man believes that all the instincts or 
tendencies of his nature are inclined toward virtue, the 
moral life takes its clue from the doctrine of ‘‘the just 
medium,’’ as in China, or the conception of ‘‘the golden 
mean’’ (‘‘nothing to excess’’), as in ancient Greece. Again, 
one may find practically the same precept, known by us 
as the Golden Rule, formulated in the same language in 
China, in India, and in Palestine, but in very different con- 

12 Op. cit., p. 7, foll. 

13 Quoted by Myers, op. cit., p. 57. 


The Dawn of Morality 87 


nections in each ease. The tendency toward ethical ideal- 
ism may take the form of idealizing the divine, and so 
there may arise a conception of a spiritual being embody- 
ing all that man ean dream of perfection.’* Or, reflection 
upon life and man’s place in it, upon human nature and 
its potentialities, on human action and its ends, may lead 
to closer examination of human experience to determine 
where man’s true purpose lies, and the formulation of an 
ideal of conduct to be pursued for man and humanity. In 
the latter case the implied ethical system is conceived as 
the basis of a conscious ordering of human life by the 
deliberate efforts of the best and wisest members of the 
human race. That is, man is dependent on his own 
excellence, not on any religious sanction. So the prin- 
ciple may come into general recognition that for the 
individual ‘‘virtue is its own reward,’’ in contrast with 
the idea of rewards bestowed by God or during the future 
life. The basis of morals is then taken to be the intrinsic 
desirability of that which accords with the true principle 
of man’s nature, brought to its proper development by 
education. Thus come into view such virtues as justice 
and benevolence implying the idea of impartiality, or 
reciprocity. 

The Universal Element.—The law-giver does not create 
the precepts or maxims to which he gives expression, but 
lifts them to the level of moral principle regarded as hold- 
ing true for all men, whatever their rank or station. In 
ancient Greece the transition from custom to moral prin- 
ciple came about through the protests of Socrates against 
the teachings of Sophists who undertook to raise the opin- 
ions of individual men to the rank of law. With Socrates 
morality became disinterested. When morality reaches 
this high stage, a certain ideal of character becomes the 
goal of all endeavor; and man undertakes to cultivate what 
is best in himself and to aid others in the same process, 
as in the ease of the wise man’s ideal, so long the standard 
during the prevalence of Greek and Roman Stoicism.?® 


14 See Hobhouse, op. ctt., Vol. II, p. 161. 


15 See W. Windelband, History of Philosophy, tr. by Tufts, 2d ed., 
1901, p. 163. 


88 The Basis of Ethics 


Reflective Morality.—In place of the idea of the tribe, 
imposing its customs upon the individual and granting no 
rights of protest to the individual, we now have the indi- 
vidual attaining the level of reflective morality in freedom. 
The individual thus finds himself, his character typical of 
man universally as a moral being. He looks out upon 
society as a sort of extension of himself, treating all men as 
he would himself. Hence the significance of the Golden 
Rule. From these results we may pass to a conception of 
the moral order as a coherent whole. This whole is differ- 
ently conceived by the various typical peoples, such as the 
Chinese, the Greeks, and Hindoos. So too the conception 
of goodness differs, as among the Greeks, to whom we owe 
the first formulations of ideas of the good which have pre- 
vailed throughout the Christian era. But for our present 
purposes the most significant consideration is this change 
to the inner world of recognition of moral principles. The 
idea of the moral law or obligation or conscience now be- 
comes objective in contrast with its given history in the case 
of any of the great peoples. Any one of us, examining his 
inner experience, may take himself as typical, testing the 
classic analyses anew. So each may penetrate back of the 
formulas, to the experiences which led to them, discrimi- 
nating between the habit and the spirit for which it existed. 
So doing, we may also penetrate beneath all authority im- 
posed from without to the authority of the moral law 
within. 

Emotional Origins.—The question of the side of human 
nature most active in the dawn of morality is not to be 
readily answered by appeal to historical studies. Wester- 
marck holds that moral concepts are ultimately based on 
emotions either of indignation or approval.1® He finds 
that men pronounce certain acts to be good or bad because 
of the emotions which those acts have aroused in their 
minds. Because good acts generally produce pleasure and 
bad acts pain, goodness and badness have become identified 
with the tendency of acts to produce pleasure or pain. An 
act is also called good because approved of, and this judg- 

16 Op. cit., Vol. I, p. 4. 


The Dawn of Morality 89 


ment in turn involves conformity to a general rule. But 
Westermarck firmly believes that the accepted rule has an 
emotional sanction in the person’s own mind; also that the 
first moral judgments are passed by public opinion because 
of emotions of indignation. Even when acts are spoken 
of as involving greater or lesser degrees of badness or good- 
ness, these quantitative differences are due to the emotional 
origin of all moral concepts.27 Public opinion and law 
judge by detected acts, seldom by an exhaustive examina- 
tion of the case. A judgment may refer feelingly to some 
ereat teacher whose words have become sacred, for example, 
Confucius or Buddha. The intensity of a moral emotion 
tends to make the person objectify his judgment, to give it 
universal validity. So our moral consciousness belongs to 
our mental constitution, which we can not change as we 
please: we approve and we disapprove beeause we can not 
do otherwise, as we can not help feeling pain when the fire 
burns, as we can not help sympathizing with our friends. 

The objection to this view is that it neglects the ration- 
alistiec side of our nature. Westermarck makes very wide- 
spread studies of savage life, but gives little heed to ethical 
idealism and passes by Greek philosophy. At best the emo- 
tions of approval and disapproval are assigned an adequate 
piace, in contrast with a former tendency to ignore them. 
But the thesis concerning moral emotions is not proved. 
The result is a tissue of relativities. Westermarck finds no 
general moral truths. THis assertion that our moral judg- 
ments spring from our own consciousness leaves the dis- 
cussion at the point attained by the Sophists prior to 
Socrates, namely, that individual opinion is moral law. 
His investigation yields no basis for moral obligation as 
a truth of the moral experience of the race. He discloses 
no adequate conception of the self. There is no ground of 
appeal beyond the bare fact that my moral consciousness 
yields moral judgments because it is my nature. In fact, 
Westermarck scouts the idea of moral obligation in the 
sense of a standard as a vulgar idea.® There is, he be- 


17 Ibid., p. 13. 
18 Ibid., p. 20. 


90 The Basis of Ethics 


lieves, no right to which the individual has to adjust his 
opinions, but only that ‘‘right’’ which has its existence in 
each individual mind. If our moral emotions are tacitly 
felt to be impartial, this disinterestedness is an assumption. 
Moral disapproval is a form of resentment, while moral 
approval is retributive kindly feeling. The implied judg- 
ments refer back, to be sure, to society at large, prior to 
merely private emotions; but for Westermarck this refer- 
ence is always to emotions felt in relation to tribal custom, 
which, in his terms, was the earliest rule of duty.?® 
Reason as Origin—Hobhouse reaches a very different 
result by studies in the same field, in which he finds mor- 
ality tending toward a rationalistie conception of the 
moral order as a coherent whole. From such a point of 
view, the manifold judgments must not only tolerate but 
actively support one another. We do not expect to find 
perfect coherence in any given society, for actual morality 
grows up amid the imperfections of human character, in- 
fluenced by the accidents of historical development; hence 
the moral consciousness has all the characteristics of mind 
In growth, not of mind that has attained.2° The germ of 
such an idea of moral coherence has been found by moral 
teachers, with singular consistency, in the Golden Rule of 
Confucius. Viewing all morality from primitive custom 
upwards, the same principle is implied in the recognition 
of rules of conduct of general application, namely, that 
the individual is a member of a spiritual whole with a com- 
- mon life and a general interest. This principle gives the 
needed coherence to the multitudinous sympathies, sus- 
ceptibilities, and reluctances that guide the moral life of 
unreflective man. So the problem of moral obligation 
passes into that of the moral standard, ‘‘whereby all the 
lines of conduct laid down by the moral order may be 
viewed as starting from the same basis and pointing to the 
same result,’’ the good as right or objective.2*_ Obligation 
is then seen to rest on the altruism of which the love-rela- 


19 Ibid., p. 118. 
20 Op. cit., Vol. II, p. 218. 
21 [bid., p. 219. 


The Dawn of Morality 91 


tion is the perfect type. The obligation can not be re- 
solved away. It underlies all ethical thought. Hach man 
is a member of a spiritual whole to which he owes service, 
man is bound by spiritual ties to a community with a life 
and purpose of its own. It is not necessary then to assume 
an original egoism or self-regard out of which altruism was 
developed in a secondary way: egolsm is at once too de- 
liberate and too limited to be primitive.2? It is modified 
impulse which later becomes desire and aversion: desire for 
things that are pleasant rather than desire for pleasure. 
It is the inherited psycho-physical structure of the gre- 
garious instinct which makes experience pleasant or 
painful. 

Whether or not we can see as much as Hobhouse does in 
the inherited structure which marks out the main lines of 
behavior, social and self-regarding, in accordance with the 
conditions of race-maintenance, his conception of the prim- 
itive life out of which morality has appeared leaves abun- 
dant room for the qualifying play of intelligence and will, 
and the growth of moral purpose. According to his view 

oi will, for instance, will is distinguished from desire ‘‘be- 
~ cause in it the whole personality tends to be involved rather 
than a single sense or single emotion.’’ 2% Will does not 
set to work in ‘‘a kind of vacuum of pure reason,’’ but 
finds itself guided and limited from the first by social rules 
which form the standard by which the conduct of each 
man is judged. Granted these rules embodying tradition, 
and the individual responding to his impulses within the 
limits of life lived in groups, the conditions are then ready 
for the development of ethical conceptions and for the 
growth of human character. The individual finds himself 
a responsible agent standing under certain obligations. 
whether to himself, to others, or to society as a whole, as 
defined by the requirements of the common good. Those 
moral ideas are valid which correspond to the permanent 
conditions of human progress. Hobhouse urges the claims 
of duty on the ground that when man thoroughly under- 


22 Ibid, p. 259. 
23 Ibid., p. 262. 


92 The Basts of Ethies 


stands its nature and its bearings on our own life and 
that of humanity, man is compelled on rational grounds to 
recognize its validity, and admit that the ends to which 
it points are wider and greater than any private good 
that may conflict with it. Thus for rationalism the moral 
basis lies in the unfolding of the full meaning of the moral 
order, as that through which the human spirit grows. 
Summary.—Adopting the rationalistic point of view, 
we may assimilate the results reached by Westermarck and 
others without placing undue stress on emotions or in- 
stincts. Paulsen is right in maintaining that ‘‘custom 
forms the original content of duty,’’ that is, originally 
duty enjoined a life in accordance with custom." For 
custom was once ‘‘purposive modes of behavior for solving 
the various problems of life,’’ and so custom aimed at the 
preservation and welfare of the collective body, while duty 
was invested with the authority of custom. But we shall 
find increasing reason to believe that duty is higher in 
authority than custom, although what is prescribed in the 
name of duty may be matter of custom. In subsequent 
chapters we shall develop rationalism in contrast with 
conceptions of the good founded on sensibility, and we shall 
find objections to the idea of duty for duty’s sake, and 
similar approaches to the moral ideal. For the present our 
interest centers about the conclusions that (1) moral good- 
ness presupposes natural goodness and is dependent on it; 
(2) natural goodness presupposes conditions under which 
it has been attained; (3) there is a native ‘‘urge”’ stirring 
man to advance, produce, create; (4) natural experience 
precedes ideas of its meaning, and moral experience pre- 
cedes its formulation in terms of maxims, precepts, laws; 
(5) moral ideas are worked out, achieved amid more or 
less adverse conditions by men whose characters are im- 
perfect; (6) there is a dynamic, achieving element, in con- 
trast with the formal or static: it is the latter which re- 
ceives recognition in types of authority impeding ethical 
progress; (7) while moral precepts apply to specific situ- 
ations, to time, place, nation, moral laws imply universal 
241’, Paulsen, 4 System of Hthics, tr. by Thilly, 1899, p. 346, 


The Dawn of Morality 93 


principles applicable to the moral sphere as a whole: it is 
the moral unwersal, attained through reflective morality, 
rather than custom, that is significant for ethics. 


REFERENCES 


Mackenzigz, J. 8., Manual of Ethics, Bk. I, Chap. IV. 

Myers, P. V. N., History as Past Ethics, Chap. II. 

DrEwey AND TuFts, Hthics, Part I. 

Hosnovss, L. T., Morals in Evolution, 1906, Vol. I. 

WESTERMARCK, H., Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas, 
1906, Vol. I. 


CHAPTER VII 
MORAL OBLIGATION 


~ Generalization—When human thought enters the 
period of scientific study of events occurring in the world 
round about, interest changes from what merely happens 
in a detached way to what conceivably takes place univer- 
sally. If the facts of ltfe were to remain single, discon- 
tinuous, unrepeated even in memory, it would be impossible 
to describe them so as to determine what a fact is, namely, 
an event which ean be identified with other occurrences in 
universal terms, with reference to the uniformity of nature 
and the reign of law. So too in the field of ethics, thought 
passes from the single deed, detached maxim, tribal custom 
prevailing as matter of habit to reflection on the moral 
principle conceived as universal. Mere custom may be as 
detached from any assignable principle as fashions which 
come and go, or may imply as much servitude on the part 
of the individual as matters of etiquette in this or that 
country which we observe merely while traveling in the 
country in question. But when morality reaches the re- 
flective stage the individual becomes typical of the moral 
order, and his deeds may be generalized to determine what 
a moral action is specifically. 

Moral Action.—Conduct, we have seen, is more than 
mere behavior: it involves motives, intentions, and voli- 
tions. A moral act is a particular instance of such activity, 
intelligible to others in terms of their own conduct. A 
moral action is (1) subjective in relation to the motive, 
which may intimately involve the personal life; (2) ob- 
jective in relation to the conduct and welfare of others. 
The moral deed reacts upon the agent, and it may be 
fraught with heavy consequences for others. Subjectively 
it is an event in the life of the individual, implying rela- 

94 


Moral Obligation 95 


tionship between his impulses, emotions, desires, and the 
measure of self-control or reason he possesses. It also 
involves his philosophy or attitude toward life; his moral 
principles in contrast with expediency or prudence. Ob- 
jectively it becomes part of the moral history of the race, 
as in heroic deeds done during the World War. 

A moral action is a deed known as right or wrong, good 
or bad when judged by a standard such that the good deed 
‘‘ought’’ to be done, the bad deed ought not to be done. 
The good act is approved the bad disapproved. By ap- 
proving of an action we associate it implicitly at least with 
an ethical ideal. We also see in a moral deed, choice or 
volition which narrows ambiguous alternatives to the cer- 
tain result achieved. The action may seem to express the 
dominion of the strongest motive, and so it may be taken 
to imply determinism. Suffice it for the present to say 
that a moral action involves voluntary activity: the agent 
knows what he is about, has some preference implying 
relation to character; and so a moral action is one that 
manifests character.t The alternatives appear not only to 
be ambiguous but incompatible. The higher alternative 
having been chosen and acted upon, we signalize the deed 
as a value, indicating its worth, for example, if it is a deed 
involving heroism, by putting it in relation to similar deeds 
springing from commendable motives. Given the moral 
deed, we analyze and make explicit its motive, noting the 
implied ideal, the relationship to moral law and obligation. 

Moral Judgment.—The significant consideration on the 
inner side is what Martineau calls the ‘‘irresistible tend- 
ency to approve and disapprove, to pass judgments of right 
and wrong.’’? When approbation falls we recognize merit, 
with disapprobation, demerit. We do not raise the wrong 
deed, a falsehood, for example, to the universal level; we 
do exalt the right deed and commend it to the race. Ob- 
serving the behavior of men, we single out those deeds 
which to us are typical of their morals, and from the deeds 
pass judgement to the sources from which they sprang. 


1 Dewey and Tufts, Ethics, p. 202, foll. 
2 J. Martineau, Types of Ethical Theory, 1891, Vol. Il, p. 18. 


96 The Basis of Ethics 


It is clear then that the object of moral judgment is 
voluntary action, involving a certain direction of the will 
which we characterize as the motive. The will is called 
good in the sense of a determined effort to produce a good 
result: a good will issues in good action, and from the 
point of view of a type of ethical theory there can be no 
good action without a good will. The subject of the moral 
judgment is the point of view from which an action is 
judged good or bad. We judge our own actions by doing 
them, learning in time to take up the viewpoint of the 
impartial spectator. 

Judgments and Intentions.—We also pass judgment on 
a man’s intentions, and we note that actions intended to 
be good may lead to undesirable consequences. Some 
moralists have passed by motives as if these made no dif- 
ference, and have confined attention to the results. Others 
have shown that it is the end in view which shows the 
character of the deed, hence that our actions can be classi- 
fied in terms of their intentions. As the motive is what 
induced the man to do his deed in a particular manner, 
it directs attention to the doer, whom we thereby judge. 
We can not however pass intelligent judgment without 
discriminating between motives and results in instances 
where the motives may be excellent but the action subject 
to condemnation. We do not judge with approval the 
tribes which sacrifice the first-born, or the Spartans who 
sacrificed their weaklings. We pass from sweeping judg- 
ments regarding the World War to the leaders of a party 
in a given nation most directly responsible, and from 
atrocities to the policy of frightfulness from whence they 
sprang. We think of an action as part of a system of 
life, for example, deeds wrought by the Soviet government 
whereby tyranny was supplanted by tyranny. We per- 
haps approved of Mussolini’s coup, and set him down as 
a ‘‘good’’ dictator, just as we hear about a ‘‘good’’ trust 
and a ‘‘bad’’ trust. Finding the result good or bad on the 
whole, we turn from the deed to the person or persons who 


8See Mackenzie, op, cit., p. 129. 


Moral Obligation 97 


wrought it; and so we find it almost impossible to separate 
the elements of the judgment. 

Objects of Moral Judgment.— Westermarck holds that 
it is only from want of due reflection that moral judg- 
ments are influenced by outward deeds: the will is the only 
proper object of moral disapproval or moral praise.* Mar- 
tineau maintains that we judge persons exclusively, the 
inner spring of an action, as distinguished from its out- 
ward operation.’ For the dynamic source of a moral action 
is in the mind, and a verdict is pronounced accordingly. 
No moral value is to be attributed to external benefits save 
as outward deeds are signs and exponents of the goodness 
from which they spring. It is therefore clear to Martineau 
whom we first judge, namely, ourselves. Since the moral 
quality consists in the inner spring of action, and since 
this is not apprehensible by any external observation but 
is knowable in the first instance only by internal self-con- 
sciousness, it follows that we judge ourselves: the external 
sign would be unmeaning to us were not the thing signified 
already familiar to us by our own experience.® 

Martineau’s account of moral judgments is far more 
true however of man today than of man in his early his- 
tory. Reflective morality probably began in judgments 
passed on other people, with reference to consequences and 
appearances, and only gradually became subjective. Our 
judgments are arrived at by interaction between the ob- 
jective and the subjective. The man who suspects under- 
handed dealings on the part of his neighbor may later 
realize that it is through his own underhandedness that 
he comes to attribute hidden motives to others. The indi- 
vidual gradually disengages himself from his social group. 
At first he may seem to act from sheer spontaneity, but 
later he discovers alternatives and by contrast comes to 
see the meaning of his volitions. 

Moral judgment then implies both social relationships 
and dualities or alternatives. Its elements being under- 


4Op. cit., Vol. I, p. 247. 
5 Op. cit., p. 24. 
6 Ibid., p. 29. 


98 The Basis of Ethics 


stood, we may say in brief that what we judge is con- 
duct, and we have seen that conduct involves character. 
The more highly intelligible the more moral it may be. 
Moral judgment is passed on those who may be held re- 
sponsible, as in the World War. We are all the while 
erowing in scientific knowledge of human conduct, and so 
we are approaching the period of righteous judgment. In 
practice we find it impossible to settle all cases of conflict 
by considering, with Martineau, the springs of action; but 
must, with other moralists, consider the ends in view, and 
sometimes estimate the probable results.7. So in time we 
arrive at surer knowledge of moral values. 

Moral Law.—We have noted that many laws are first 
discoverable in the guise of custom. The Greek term 
Nomos signified both custom and law, the deep-rooted idea 
that law was the outcome of custom. So too among other 
peoples law expressed the customs of the majority, customs 
expressly formulated, enforced by more definite sanctions, 
either through appeal to social utility or an increasing 
sense of justice. Customs may at first have been simply 
counsels of prudence on the basis of experience. Hence 
arise the maxims such as, ‘‘Honesty is the best policy,”’ 
in which customs are summarized prior to the coming of 
the law-giver who reduces the prevailing precepts to a code 
or system. The first interest is the welfare of the tribe. 
Later, when the interest becomes universal the law-giver 
may set a standard which becomes elassic. Later still, 
the reflective moralist may see that in this standard is 
involved a law of morality applicable to humanity without 
regard to nation or race. 

The law then is first recognized as a formulation of ex- 
perience or rule of action based on previous experiences in 
which a relation is seen between right motives and deeds, 
in the light of social well-being. With the incoming of 
authority, due to the acceptance of a code as binding upon 
the whole people, moral rules are regarded as constant, and 
so the absolute element of morality seems to have been 


7 Martineau’s theory will be considered in another chapter. 
8 See Westermarck, op. cit., Vol. I, p. 165. 





Moral Obligation 99 


gained. But the moral laws are still relative: they are the 
formulas which establish the given morality according to 
the stage of knowledge attained, as in China in the age of 
Confucius. It is essential to distinguish between (1) the 
formulas of a given people, involving modes of conduct 
wherein they may differ from other peoples; and (2) the 
moral law as a constant or principle exemplified in human 
morality as a whole. 

Moral and Civil Laws.—Civil law is differentiated after 
a time with reference to overt acts, transgressions which 
may be treated in the light of fixed penalties; inner con- 
duct is thrown out of account, and much discretion is left 
to judges. A civil law may even enjoin or forbid acts 
regarded as indifferent from a moral point of view.2 When 
we contrast deeds looked upon as wrong because they are 
illegal with moral deeds, judged as they are in relation 
to conduct, whether the agent is detected or not, we turn 
more specifically to moral law as dependent neither on 
statute-books nor on courts, but as recognized from within. 
And this inner life of ours, with its awareness of responsi- 
bility, is not, as we have before noted, a mere life according 
to rule but an experience involving spontaneity. Our rules 
may have been convenient summaries in the first place, as 
reminders of the realities of experience. Referring to 
those realities we note that our rules of conduct did not 
counsel us concerning something to do merely, but some- 
thing to become.?® That is, they pertained to character, to 
an ideal. Moral life involves something to be fulfilled, 
rather than a negation and restraint, or an overt act sub- 
ject to legal judgment. If we are to leave room for the 
plastic element, and regard ethics as ‘‘the living expression 
of the changing life of man,’’ as Seth puts it, we must put 
ourselves back into the sources to determine, if we can, the 
ultimate basis of moral obligation. 

Origin of Moral Law.—If we hold that the moral law 
is ultimately due to revelation, we naturally ask, Is it then 


9For other contrasts, see G. H. Palmer, The Field of Ethics, 
Chap. IT. 
10 See J. Seth, op. cit., p. 16. 


100 The Basis of Ethics 


fixed beyond debate, absolute, apart from all experience, 
from time, place, and law-giver? It would be difficult to 
support this thesis today. If not above reason but identical 
in essence with it, we may pass by the question of revela- 
tion and concern ourselves with the rational content of the 
moral law as given: revelation because true is rational, we 
possess in our own natures the direct clue to the moral 
order. What we are concerned with is the moral ideal as 
we find men striving for it. If the moral law were purely 
external, it would be a mere question of commandments 
to be obeyed, in contrast with the imperative to realize an 
ideal of human character: Whatever the sources of moral 
goodness in divine goodness, we are concerned with the 
moral law as given from within. 

Instead of setting the moral law apart as due to a reve- 
lation to be accepted without question, the modern believer 
in divine revelation in the light of its bearing on the moral 
law is likely to point out that the moral law as a divine 
command is compatible with the view that the command- 
ments existed in civic forms before the giving of the 
revelation, also that there was a social development grad- 
ually leading to the time when the divine sanction was 
added to the civil. This view accords with the fact of his- 
tory that there is a genesis or development of all moral 
ideas, a given historical content, with a gradual emergence 
of the distinction between custom and conscience. The 
question of the divine sanction, is therefore one that is to 
be considered in its proper connection. 

Authority of Moral Law.—Whatever conclusion may 
be arrived at regarding the added authority attributed to 
the moral law by appeal to revelation, the significant fact 
is that in any case the law was given through the moral 
self. The individual who accepts moral law has had a 
natural experience, as well as a spiritual endowment. It 
is as a child of nature as well as a child of God that he is 
seen in process of recognizing the moral law. So, too, in 
human history at large we find the long preliminary ex- 
perience which eventually leads to the period of law-giving. 
As essentially the same principles are put in universal 


ee ee —_— 


a i ee at te 


Moral Obligation 101 


terms by different law-givers in different lands, including 
those of the Ten Commandments as attributed to the medi- 
ation of Moses, the moral law has come to be regarded 
as we would any rational principle. What is absolute in 
it is not a given series of commandments, for these were 
formulated at a certain period, in view of certain needs, 
and probably amid various social limitations; it is the 
principle implied in all moral systems at all times, namely, 
the law that there shall be law, the ultimate value on which 
all other values depend. Granted this insight, we under- 
stand how there can be moral progress, for instance, the 
change from outward observance to recognition of purity 
of heart, and from the Ten Commandments to the simpler 
two of the New Testament: love toward God and the neigh- 
bor as inclusive of all the rest. 

The Sanctions.—The precise position occupied by the 
moral law becomes more clear when we note that various 
sanctions or reasons have been advocated for observing 
laws. 1. Physical sanctions enjoin observance of natural 
conditions making for health, freedom, peace. These per- 
tain to prudence and efficiency: we owe it to society to 
keep fit, to train ourselves to do our best work. Prudence 
is a means to self-realization. 2. Civil sanctions involve 
regard for laws of the community, state, and nation im- 
posed for the good of all. We not only endeavor to ob- 
serve regulations of the community subject to penalties in 
ease of disobedience, but to maintain ‘‘unwritten laws,’’ 
as in driving an automobile, also the usual objective pro- 
prieties, what is deemed right in bodily behavior. Thus 
far the sanctions are external. 3. Internal sanctions may 
involve exceptions taken to civil law on the part of the 
individual ; sometimes a conflict, as in case of conscientious 
objectors, people who claim freedom of speech whatever 
the objection, rights of worship, reactions against pater- 
nalism. 4. Social sanctions may involve closer accord be- 
tween the individual and current regulations than in case 
of civil law. Thus honor, reputation, and other social 
benefits are regarded as of great moment. Such sanctions 
may either sustain or conflict with moral ideals. 5. Re- 


102 The Basis of Ethics ‘ 
ligious sanctions seem to many the only real commands. 
Unable to change what we take to be divine laws, we 
_ realize it to be our privilege to grow in responsiveness to 
them. We look up to such laws with respect, as having 
great power over us. Civil and social laws, given divine 
sanction, become absolute for those who place emphasis 
on ‘‘the religion of authority’’ in contrast with what 
Sabatier calls ‘‘the religion of the Spirit.’’ The law does 
not punish selfishness. Public opinion does not require 
self-sacrifice. But religion condemns the one and usually 
enjoins the other. Thus many moral matters receive what 
we take to be their ultimate authority when we attach the 
religious sanction to them. 

We are apt to lose sight of the fact that acceptance of 
any sanction as right involves judgment on our part. All 
regulations adopted by social groups may become ethical 
when moral judgment is passed upon them. In athletics, 
for instance, it becomes a question of ‘‘fair play,’’ ‘‘clean 
sport’’: hence it becomes a duty to keep out professional- 
ism, to sustain contracts, avoid bribery. So, too, all mat- 
ters dealt with in the courts may receive moral sanction, 
and maintenance of civil law becomes a question of moral 
integrity. The judge must arrive at decisions which ac- 
cord with the statute-books, must take precedent into 
account; but every decision may also be a moral matter, 
and the reasons assigned may be moral. In commercial 
relations, the question constantly arises whether or not 
a man is upright. In politics honesty is less frequently 
expected, and it is not even customary to consider whether 
partisanship involving attacks on candidates, misrepresen- 
tation, and bitterness, is right. When other sanctions 
receive moral support, it becomes a question of obligation, 
a fundamental issue involving the realm of values, hence 
a type of existence which often seems intangible in con- 
trast with either natural law or civil law. 

The Nature of Moral Obligation.—It would be difficult 
to make the idea of moral obligation intelligible if we were 
to start with a period in human society when no recogni- 
tion of it existed, then try to establish obligation on a 





Moral Obligation 103 


secure basis by showing the stages of development. For 
the attempt to prove it would involve the consciousness of 
it, which is the convincing evidence that it is real. We 
need not try to show how and why isolated individuals 
came by it and then extended the idea of obligation to 
include a whole social group; since, as we have seen, man 
regarded as a moral being is also a social being from the 
first, and his consciousness of obligation is one of the 
strongest ties which bind him to his group. The individual 
is a member of a family, a tribe, and later finds himself 
a member of a race or nation. He discovers himself in 
various relations, domestic and political, and all these 
imply moral relations involving obligations." 

Evidences from Experience.—Finding ourselves with 
awareness of such obligation we can indeed discover good 
reasons. Experience shows that motives influence conduct, 
that virtue brings results, and we realize that it is in- 
cumbent upon us to select our motives more carefully, to 
have higher aims, and adjust our conduct that we may 
steadily approximate the highest ideal we know. We also 
learn from experience that evil deeds bring consequences 
in kind, and we realize that we should avoid them. Good 
deeds imply the existence of the moral order, each indi- 
vidual as a moral being is part of that order, and has 
full opportunity to contribute his share toward the good 
of the whole; whereas evil deeds are destructive of moral 
order. Hach man is a recipient of goods through mem- 
bership in this moral solidarity of the race, and realiza- 
tion that one receives benefits, leads to realization that one 
should give one’s share. 

Moral Law and Obligation.—Such reflections lead to 
recognition of the moral law as above yet within and 
through the whole structure of the human self and human 
society. To see that the law is over and above me is to 
realize that I am under obligation to obey, and this obli- 
gation is very different from my immature passing thoughts 
about law. In my youth I may have thought that if I did 
wrong and was not ‘‘eaught in the act’’ the misdeed did not 

11 See Seth, op. cit., p. 319. 


104 The Basis of Ethics 


matter. But radically different was my later thought of 
right and wrong, when I learned that misdeeds bring 
their consequences whether these deeds are ever found out 
or not; when I saw that punishment through one’s own 
sense of shame, remorse, sense of guilt, and the degrading 
consequences of wrong-doing is often far greater and much 
more persistent than punishment inflicted externally by 
parents or teachers, or by civil law. Punishment inflicted 
by others may be unjust. A person’s real guilt may never 
be discovered. It is possible to be endlessly evasive. But 
the moral law is unescapable. It plainly is not of human 
invention. Man is totally unable to legislate it out of being. 
Yet by recognizing its august authority over him he may 
see how to fulfill his obligation. 

Law as Necessary.—In the world of nature around we 
find it necessary to adapt our behavior to certain condi- 
tions in order to obtain desired results, and man’s life as 
a physical being is one long series of adaptations. Nature 
has no favorites. She never bestows even slight gifts for 
nothing. She imposes conditions, and we may either accept 
these, adjusting means to ends, or forego what we have 
attempted. Thus there are certain conditions which make 
for bodily health and development, involving adjustment 
between hours for work, rest, recreation, and sleep. In 
this sense obligation has been defined as ‘‘the necessity of 
modifying ary particular expression of impulse by the 
whole system of which it is a part.’’ }? 

Obligations and Values.—Necessities of this sort extend 
through the whole sphere of conduct: impulse and emotion, 
desire and its expression must be regulated, feeling must 
be curbed by, yet should contribute to reason, will is de- 
pendent on native promptings, and so mental life ig or- 
ganic. Man does not create the needs, he does not gener- 
ate the strivings toward freedom and the fullness of life; 
and even his capacities and his energies, also his powers 
of initiative are given. Life yields the incentive, suggests 
the end: it is for man to adjust his conduct if he wills to 
attain the end. But his obligations in the sphere of self- 

12 Ten Broeke, The Moral Life and Religion, p. 23. 


OO a 


Moral Obligation 105 


expression are surpassed by the greater obligations of self- 
realization as a productive member of the social order in 
which he lives as a participant moral being. Thus the 
sense of moral obligation is cumulative. With the con- 
sciousness of wider relations the sense of obligation in- 
creases till one sees that its basis is different from that of 
our dependence on natural law. The higher may be im- 
plicit in the lower or earlier, and there certainly is no 
chasm between natural goodness and moral goodness. But 
moral obligation is normative, it yields the standard by 
which we judge, is universal or objective—the basis of 
values and principles on which we render intelligible our 
judgments of right and wrong. And yet obligation can 
not be forced. Obligation is recognized, and it may be 
accepted; it is a principle rather than a fact or element; 
it is interpretative rather than explanatory. To ask 
‘‘why’’ it exists would be asking why any values come 
into being. 

The answer to the typical question then, What makes 
all right acts right, and all wrong acts wrong: why ought 
I to obey the moral law? is to be found by arriving at a 
conception of goodness, with its claims upon the individual 
who becomes aware of its value.* We see into the indi- 
vidual, intuitively realizing the unity of character and 
conduct. We see that moral integrity is essential to char- 
acter, that conduct needs to become consistent. Virtue is 
essential to integrity and consistency. Hence, we some- 
times summarize the whole moral situation by reference 
to a single virtue, such as sincerity, honesty, or justice, as 
the basis of all other virtues. The virtues, we realize, must 
belong together. Somehow there is a scale of excellence 
culminating in the life of complete self-realization. This 
unity of virtue implies law, and as we become aware of 
law we increase our sense of obligation. 

Law and the Self.—This appears to be reasoning in a 
circle, and some have tried to break out of the circle by 
assuming some central or all-containing good, with an un- 
conditional imperative assigned by man’s own nature, dis- 

13 Seth, op. cit., p. 19. 


106 The Basis of Ethies 


eovered through the life of reason. There is a tendency 
however to make the sense of obligation too subjective, 
when we try to rationalize it as a law imposed by one part 
of the self on other parts. Martineau objects that the 
sense of authority which we set up for ourselves we could 
assuredly put down for ourselves.1* The sense of authority 
is not an egoistic peculiarity, affording no rational ground 
of expectation from others; rights and duties are recipro- 
eal. One lone man in an atheistic world would have no 
sense of moral authority. For if the sense of authority 
means anything at all it means ‘‘discernment of something 
higher than we, having claims on our self ... hovering 
over and transcending our personality, though also min- 
sling with our consciousness and manifested through its 
intimations.’’+> Even in the absence of human compan- 
icnship, we are ‘‘still held in the presence of One having 
moral affinity with us.’’ Truly to retire into ourselves is 
to find that we are transported out of ourselves, and 
‘placed beneath the light of a diviner countenance.’’ The 
awareness of moral obligation then is more than part and 
parcel of myself: ‘‘it is the communion of God’s guiding 
life and guiding love entering and abiding with an appre- 
hensive capacity in myself.’’ It is here then that we meet 
the objective authority which has its seat in eternal reality, 
and any man having this insight is discerning what is valid 
for all. One sees that it takes two to establish an obliga- 
tion. Without the objective conditions the idea of duty 
would involve a contradiction.1° Nothing can be binding 
to us that is not higher than we, and to speak of one part 
of the self imposing an obligation on another part is to 
trifle with the real significance of our moral consciousness. 

Inner Obligation.—The account which Martineau gives 
of this consciousness has never been surpassed. He makes 
it clear that conscience does not frame the law, it reveals 
it as holding us, discloses its reality. It is not our mere 
feeling or sentiment that yields the obligation. The reality 


14 Op. ctt., p. 101. 
15 [bid., p. 104. 
16 Op, cit., p. 5. 


Moral Obligation 107 


of duty is not contingent upon our apprehension of it. 
But because the law exists and is real, because there is 
duty and there is conscience our sentiments and reasons 
are in accord, have a permanent basis. Conscience yields 
the conditions under which we make the discovery. Con- 
science is supreme in its sphere. It gives awareness of a 
something which I owe, which is due from me, which JI 
ought to do.17 There is within me an awareness of that 
which is binding, while externally there is opportunity to 
carry into expression what I have recognized as my duty. 
The inner obligation is more than a sense of outer von- 
straint. But ‘‘the felt inner binding’’ on ourselves and 
‘‘the enacted outer constraint’? upon our fellows are 
‘‘narallel and concurrent expressions of the same nature; 
neither is before nor after the other.’’+* We are not then 
simply reasoning in a circle, but making explicit a series 
of fundamental relations. The self as law-giver is typical, 
social, and representative of the moral solidarity of the 
race. Looking toward the past, the self sees the force of 
the maxims, rules, and precepts which have guided people 
in their emergence from custom into morality, and so our 
thought makes explicit the principle or universal implied 
all along. Looking toward God, the self finds the eternal 
Other or One which is the ground of all selves. Looking 
toward present society throughout the world, the self sees 
humanity in process of achieving reciprocity as an actual 
fact. 

The Ultimate Basis.—To rest the implied moral obliga- 
tion on God in the sense of mere might or mere will, would 
not be to find an adequate basis.1®9 God as ground of moral 
obligation is also intelligence or reason. Wemay say then 
that the ultimate basis of moral obligation is in the World- 
Ground or Universal Reason, however we may develop this 
conception. The significant consideration is that the re- 
ality which imposes the obligation is not alien to the self 
which recognizes it. The same Moral Reason is discover- 


17 Tbtd., p. 19. 
18 [bid., p. 20. 
19See Mackenzie, op. cit., p. 255. 


108 The Basis of Ethics 


able by all. Conscience is a universal. We discern it, not 
in precisely the same way that we come to admit the force 
of mathematical necessity, as dependent neither on the 
will of God nor on any book or any particular demon- 
stration; but with an equally sure conviction in the region 
of our thought which yields awareness of values. The 
moral reason or principle of the existence in which we find 
ourselves is more akin to us than the mechanical necessity 
which science assumes as the basis of explanation of things 
in space and time. Indeed, there is a sense in which we 
intimately participate in the moral law, free as we are to 
accept it, also free to reject the given alternative which 
would put us more in accord with it. 
Right.—Inadvertently, we identify rights, which are 
particular, with moral obligation or duty as universal; and 
so we arrive at the conclusion that rights are absolute. 
Hence the idea that the right is as fixed as mathematical 
law: it is absolutely right to tell the truth, do justice; ab- 
solutely wrong to steal, to lie, to slay. But we shall find 
increasing evidence that rights pertain to given social 
situations. In practice it is found extremely difficult to 
determine what the right is. The world is in quest of 
justice. We are learning what is truth. There is a dif- 
ference between stealing as a conscious scheming pursuit, 
and stealing done by a mother, who, abandoned with her 
child, pilfers vegetables from gardens to sustain life. The 
world is still in process of deciding whether under any 
conditions it is right to kill. Is capital punishment wrong? 
Is war always wrong? Should a violently insane person 
be slain to save a person from being murdered? Is self- 
sacrifice absolutely right? To answer such questions we 
need a conception of the good which will enable us to see 
whether there is a gradation of rights. It is indeed abso- 
lutely right to do our duty, but what is our duty when 
there is a conflict of values, as in war-time? It is the 
good implied in the obligations we are under which gives 
right its claim upon the agent.?° The rightness of an act 
consists in its value, and if there are greater and lesser 
20 See Seth, op. cit., p. 19. 


Moral Obligation 109 


rights it is because in goodness itself there is a gradation 
of values. 

The Nature of Rights—The membership we enjoy in 
the social or moral order involves rights granted to us, 
and rights which we should grant. Some of these rights 
are cared for under civil law, and society undertakes to 
enforce certain rights. But underneath all is the moral 
obligation which prompts us to do even more than what 
is conventionally right, and to further the process of dis- 
covering what the greater rights are which have not yet 
been included in civil law. It is for the sake of the general 
good that we possess rights in the moral sense of the term.”* 
Before we can say with the positiveness which society 
demands what are the rights of individuals, nations, and 
races whose status is still in dispute in the world, we need 
to grow in ethical knowledge of the social whole according 
to our conception of the good. Meanwhile, we have already 
come to certain conclusions regarding such rights as life, 
freedom, property, contract, and education.?? As civiliza- 
tion advances in moral reflectiveness the individual more 
emphatically claims the right to do what to him is his duty, 
even if, as a conscientious objector, he refuses to partici- 
pate in slightest degree in war. But we find endless con- 
flict of opinion regarding rights wherever the modern man 
has not yet made up his mind. We expect individuals with 
their conflicting views to conform for the public good. 
And so rights with their corresponding obligations have 
been defined as ‘‘specific forms of personal freedom with 
an ethical significance.’’?? Rights may then become ex- 
pressions of the obligation which we recognize as binding 
us to society: it is our right as well as our privilege to use 
our powers at their best for the welfare of society at its 
best. 

Our rights are limited or organic. We are in process of 
learning them, while society too is learning. Right in a 


21 See Mackenzie, op. ctt., p. 314. 

22 Discussed by Mackenzie, op. cit., p. 314, foll. Dewey and Tufts 
trace the development of rights: Hthics, pp. 83, 151, 186. 

23 Ten Broeke, op. cit., p. 107. 


110 The Basis of Ethics 


universal sense is identical with moral law and moral ob- 
ligation. But rights are instrumental, and it is impossible 
to throw out of account the educational process through 
which we come to recognize rights, one by one.2* Martineau 
suggests that among the various terms, such as dutiful- 
ness, rightness, it is best to choose the term ‘‘moral worth’’ 
as the most eligible; since this term is applicable with 
reference to gradations of value, relative intensities of 
excellence running through the whole system of motives.”° 
There is proportionate worth among right things, and 
proportionate heinousness in what is wrong.” It is out 
of the question to draw absolute dividing lines. Our very 
nature suggests a graduated scale of actions. We may at 
times rebel at this situation, puzzled as we are to determine 
what we ought to do. We would like to be told what is 
right, and then do it. But moral obligation brings us face 
to face with the uncertainties which it is our privilege to 
resolve. Meanwhile, we may make use of Martineau’s rule 
in so far as we are already able to put one alternative over 
against another as right or wrong, higher or lower: ‘‘every 
action is right, which, in presence of a lower principle, 
follows a higher: every action is wrong, which, in the pres- 
ence of a higher principle, follows a lower.’’ 2” 

The Absolute Element.—We are now in a position to 
see the force of the more modern answers given to the 
questions: Is there anything absolute about morality? 
For the moment the certainty of moral law and obligation 
seems to have gone. We are dreadfully sophisticated in 
these days of relativism, amid skepticism bred by the war, 
decay of authority, loss of faith in the absoluteness of reve- 
lation. But the element of the ideal has not lost its reality 
or power. The absoluteness is no longer attributed to a 
code, system of rules, or group of formulas. The decisive 
power is in the persistent life and what it produces. In 
this moral spirit persisting through all changes there is a 
’ i On rights and obligations, see Dewey and Tufts, op. cit., p. 440, 
as Op. cit., p. 47. 


26 Ibid., p. 271. 
27 Op. ctt., p. 270. 


Moral Obligation 111 


far surer basis of moral obligation than in any erystallized 
system. The absolute is progressively attained through the 
relative, aS we approach nearer the perfect scientific truth 
about the universe. Consciousness of this element yields 
a vitalizing realization. My whole selfhood may then be 
called into activity in its behalf. I now discern the truth 
that morality is absolutely essential to the fullness of life 
which I am eager to attain. The moral law is the prin- 
ciple or constant which persists through all types, implied 
in all efforts at generalization. 

The objection that, if revealed authority is questioned 
there will then be as many laws as persons, each with his 
idea of ‘‘right’’ or truth, is readily met by the realization 
that morality as an end in itself is one of the eternal values. 
We do not underestimate mathematical truth when we 
learn that each man must demonstrate it for himself, that 
its authority is not dependent on book, teacher, or any 
other consideration; it still holds true of the universe in 
all the totality of quantitative conceptions, the order, the 
balance, the law of the nature of things, yes, of the Ground 
of the universe conceived under ‘‘the aspect of eternity.’’ 
This holds true of the eternal values implying quality 
rather than quantity. These values are not psychological, 
not created by the processes of thought and experience 
wherethrough they are discovered, but are discerned intui- 
tively as archetypes of thought. What we contribute is 
the conduct which manifests the moral ideal and draws 
nearer the perfect type. That there is a right, a good, a 
moral law, and that we owe unqualified allegiance to it, 
is indeed a remarkably persistent human conviction. 
Wherein we differ is in our progress toward it by means 
of rights, various ideas of the good, different formulations. 
These are relative to the given moral situation. And so 
the account given above of moral obligation will remain 
incomplete until we have considered the nature of good- 
ness, duty, and conscience in Part Two. The whole ethical 
structure is organic. The relativity is a question of the 
dependence of its parts. The real revelation is the dis- 
covery of this surpassing truth of mutual dependence. 


112 The Basis of Ethics 


Questions.— What do we need to know about a man to 
judge him righteously ? 

Does history explain uncharitableness, intolerance, race- 
hatred, and prejudice? 

What kind of human nature is most desirable? What 
types of men should prevail more and more? How should 
human nature be remade by forces now within our power? 

Is it ever right to lie? Is there a higher or greater good 
than that of a given precept? Should every law be up- 
held? Is a moral precept right because included in a 
moral code? Why should we obey the Ten Command- 
ments? ' 

To what extent are our present moral ideals of Greek 
rather than of Christian origin? 

Is it a duty to sustain a religious ereed although we 
make mental reservations when repeating it as a mere 
‘‘value for worship’’? 

Should one person in a group ‘‘tell’’ on another when 
the authorities are seeking a culprit? 

Is capital punishment wrong? 

What is the best argument against war? 

Is moral obligation disclosed to the individual by con- 
sclence as an “‘inner voice,’’ by intuition as ‘‘infallible,’’ 
or by reason ? 

Does any moral code exist which is superior in all re- 
spects to any other? 

Is a deed guaranteed as right or good because it in- 
volves self-sacrifice ? 

Comment on the proposition: ‘‘The principles of true 
politics are but those of morals enlarged.’’ 

Is conscience a hard taskmaster ? 

Is there a complete ‘‘moral equivalent for war’’? 


REFERENCES 


Macxenzig, J. §., Manual of Ethics, Bk. II, Chaps. V, VI. 
Turner, J. H., The Philosophical Basis of Moral Obligation, 
1924, 


Myers, P. V. N., History of Past Ethics, Chap. IX. 


Moral Obligation 113 


Dewey AND Turts, Ethics, Chap. X. 

MartTINEAU, J., Types of Ethical Theory, 3rd ed., 1891, Vol. II, 
Bk. I, Chaps. I-IV. 

MurrRHEAD, J. H., Hlements of Ethics, Bk. II. 

Patmer, G. H., The Field of Ethics, Chap. II. 

McConne Lu, R. M., The Duty of Altruism, 1910, Chaps. I-VI. 

Everett, W. G., Moral Values, Chap. XI. 

BraD._ey, F. H., Ethical Studies, 1876, Chap. IT. 


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Part Two 


GOODNESS AND FREEDOM 


CHAPTER VIII 


PLEASURE AS THE GOOD 


Ethical Types.—When, with Aristotle, we say that 
every activity aims at some good, and that the good in 
general is the end at which all things aim, we find that 
there are various approaches to a conception of this great- 
est good. If emphasis is put on the desires, the good is 
regarded in terms of sensibility. To start with will as the 
decisive element is to find the clue in the good will. 
When reason is taken to be paramount, the conception 
of goodness turns upon reason as the form of unity which 
brings the desires into subjection. Again, the clue may 
be found in intuition, or conscience. The good may seem 
to consist in the end to be sought rather than in values 
attainable along the way, or it may be identified with 
present values. Or, the good may be sought through a 
unifying view with emphasis on personality; hence the 
good may be said to consist in self-realization or perfection. 

Classification of Theories—The various theories of the 
good have been classified with reference to (1) content and 
(2) form; as (1) teleological (emphasis on end) and (2) 
jural (from jus, law) ;+ again, as (1) teleological and (2) 
formalistic.2 Warner Fite narrows the theories down to 
(1) hedonism (from Hedone, pleasure), the pleasure-theory 
which ignores ideal considerations, and seeks conformity 

1 Dewey and Tufts, Hthics, p. 224. 

2F. Paulsen, A System of Ethics, tr. by F. Thilly, p. 222, 

115 


116 Goodness and Freedom 


with conditions; and (2) idealism, which urges us to ignore 
the conditions and devote ourselves to the pursuit of ideal 
ends.* 

The classification we shall adopt draws distinctions be- 
tween (1) realistic or naturalistic theories ; under this head 
belong all conceptions of the good which take man to be 
primarily sentient, or try to interpret the higher by the 
lower, including hedonism, utilitarianism, and various 
empirical or evolutional theories; and (2) idealistic 
theories, including (a) views which put emphasis on a 
single principle—reason, intuition, conscience, moral law, 
the good will, and (b) synthetic conceptions of the good, 
such as the ethics of self-realization. The distinction is 
chiefly a matter of convenience, for later realistic theories 
tend towards rationalism, while idealists assimilate the 
truth of realism. 

Prevailing Attitudes.—The significant fact is that there 
are two prevailing types which appear and reappear dur- 
ing the whole history of ethics. The one is concerned with 
activities close at hand, and often lacks vision; the other, 
assimilating the wisdom of experience, yields a vision of 
ends to be striven for, and seeks virtue by aid of will and 
reason. External conditions appear at times paramount; 
again, the end or ideal in view becomes more prominent. 
Each of us tends naturally to adopt one of these attitudes, 
but inquiry may convince us that neither is complete. 
Hence the problem of ethical theory is to find a reconciling 
view, although in relation to daily life we may still tend 
to be either realists or idealists, as we are in our other 
interests, for example, in economics, politics, literature, 
art, science, even in our religion. 

If, as Dewey and Tufts suggest, there is a common error 
running through these types of ethical theory, it is due to 
defective psychology, to the splitting of a voluntary act 
into two unrelated parts known as ‘‘inner’’ and ‘‘outer”’ 
when, in reality, a voluntary act should be described in its 
process of ‘‘passing into an overt act.’?* There is no mere 


38 An Introductory Study of Ethics, 1903, p. 324. 
4 Ethics, p. 237, 


Pleasure as the Good 117 


motive and no mere consequence. The moral quality of 
an act lies in the relation of inner-outer, the one earlier 
and the other later. It is because of the abstraction of 
‘‘inner’’ from ‘‘outer’’ that so much time has been devoted 
to the mere formulation of the good, as if it were sufficient 
to have the zdea of the summum bonum without the life. 
The good should inspire, there should be an art of goodness 
whereby the individual verifies the theory. If in our quest 
for the greatest good we conclude that it is pleasure, the 
ensuing conduct should involve exclusion of other goods 
Save as means to this one. But practice is likely to be the 
corrective of theory and to show that what we implicitly 
aim at is satisfaction of all sides of our nature. There 
is no argument in favor of a reconciling view so effective 
as the actual history of attempts to define the good as mere 
sentiency or aS mere reason. 

Pleasure-seeking.—It has long been customary for 
idealists to contend that pleasure is not the good, and the 
objections are so familar that it seems hardly worth while 
to summarize them. But in actual life the masses have 
continued to pursue pleasure as if nothing adverse had 
ever been said. Every now and then an epoch has ap- 
peared in which love of pleasure has reigned above other 
motives. New devices have been invented to foster pleas- 
ure-seeking ever since the dawn of mechanical discoveries. 
Epochs of misery, as in war-time, are followed by reactions 
in favor of pleasure. New arguments for pleasure as the 
good follow hard upon the latest refutation. There must 
be a profound reason for this persistence. The arguments 
are indeed of perennial value. The study of the question 
is in reality a study of human nature. It is still a problem 
for most of us to assign pleasure to its proper place in the 
scale, to determine the relation of pleasure to happiness, 
and to know how to limit our sensibility in general without 
curbing our desires too much. 

The Scope of Pleasure.—No very acute observation is 
needed to show that the majority of people live in the 
realm of vague feelings, with an inter-play of highly con- 
trasted emotions, and surging desires of varied sorts. It 


118 Goodness and Freedom 


is natural that our desires should find recognition in the 
view that pleasure is the good. The first evidence is found 
in the fact that as children of nature we desire pleasure 
and seek pleasurable objects, and avoid pain. Many of 
our choices as the hours and days pass are made on this 
basis. Pleasure is the implicit end for which we strive 
in many activities not yet self-conscious, and we are con- 
fessedly eager to complete our tasks as soon as possible that 
we may resume the round of pleasures for which we seem 
chiefly to exist. It does not follow that because we thus 
seek pleasure therefore we ought to seek it by identifying 
it with the good. But tacitly our thought of the good is 
greatly influenced by what we do, and by what we find 
our fellowmen doing. 

Man seeks self-satisfaction, and in all experiences yield- 
ing satisfaction pleasure is unmistakably present. There 
is an urge which prompts us to attain such satisfaction. 
We are happiest when responding in some way to this 
prompting, notably in the ease of creative work. It is 
natural to infer that as pleasure is the sign of satisfaction, 
pleasure as the object of all our desires is the good. Again, 
realizing that we take pleasure even in the idea of pleasure, 
we assume that (1) taking pleasure in an idea, (2) desir- 
ing a thing and (3) finding it pleasant are one and the 
same. Convinced that we must attain satisfaction in order 
to achieve goodness, we once more identify the idea with 
the experience, finding pleasure to be the test. Escape 
from the pains of remorse or shame, from undesirable 
experiences in general, has seemed to many to be the same 
as taking pleasure in doing good. We may indeed pre- 
tend that we do good from love of humanity, but self- 
interest is the lurking motive, and where self-interest lurks 
there is love of pleasure. Pleasure is not only the sign of 
bodily well-bemg and mental health, but consciousness at 
its height in any direction is experience of pleasure. In- 
deed, we resort to all devices to increase this experience. 
The pleasure we take in eating, for example, is typical, 
and we know that matters are never quite right with us 
unless we take pleasure in what we are doing. We not 


Pleasure as the Good 119 


only seek contentment as a general state or quality but 
expect occasional ‘‘thrills’’ to make assurance doubly sure. 
The art of life seems to resolve itself into increasing our 
ability to procure pleasure, to keep strong our zest, pro- 
long our thrills, and supplement our natural powers by 
the aid of manifold inventions calculated to multiply and 
intensify our pleasures. 

Characteristics of Pleasure.—Pleasure involves various 
contrasts to be reckoned with, before we declare that it 
is eligible. As contrasted with knowledge or science, pleas- 
ure is my own, and only indirectly am I able to indicate 
what I really feel when witnessing an absorbing play, for 
instance, or reading a thrilling story. If I doubted the 
possibility of objective knowledge, I should still be sure 
of my feelings as pleasurable. We remark that ‘‘there is 
no accounting for tastes,’’ noting how personal are the 
preferences which involve pleasure. As with love, to know 
it you must feel it. Yet because pleasure is personal, it 
involves the peculiarities of the whole subjective life. It 
is often elusive, hollow, evanescent, disappointing. Again, 
because personal, it is likely to become intense by running 
into excessive emotions and passing over into pain. Trying 
to possess it to the full, avoiding pains, we find ourselves 
meeting defeat; having paid a great price. We rest after 
a round of pleasures, to launch forth on another round. 
A part of the scheme of life consists in pursuing pleasure 
to escape not alone from ennui but from thought, and 
pleasure-seeking is the favorite device of the disappointed 
or unsuccessful. Pleasure is far too often at the expense 
of others. It readily runs into malicious delight, and as 
easily passes over into selfishness. How then shall pleasure 
be the test of goodness ? 

Pleasure and Pain.—Thrown back in disappointment, 
we may be forced to admit that pleasure as a positive 
reality is indeed elusive, and that what we mean is absence 
from pain. Hence we try to make ourselves as comfort- 
able as possible under the circumstances. But pleasure is 
persistently connected with its opposite. It seems to be 
mixed with annoyances however skillfully we adjust our- 


120 Goodness and Freedom 


selves. Tedious delays and disturbing conditions beset us, 
as in foreign travel, and our best conceived plans fall short 
of anticipations. Then too people are so stupid, unintelli- 
gent, slow; or so baffling, perverse, obstinate. We never 
seem sure that the pleasures will exceed the pains. We 
elect certain activities, such as mountain-climbing, or the 
severer athletic contests, only in case we think the hard- 
ships may be minimized. We remember that what stays 
with us is the pleasure, for instance, in the case of a vaca- 
tion or a social affair, mainly dull at the time; and so we 
keep on doing things in which pleasure may predominate. 
Then, too, we aid one another to soften down the tribula- 
tions, forget the pains, idealize the past, and substitute 
pleasant ideas of remembered past experiences. In reality 
we put up with admixtures of pleasure and pain, unable 
as we are either to plan life without results we would have 
avoided, or wholly to displace unpleasant memories by 
present ideas of pleasure interspersed as substitutes. 

It is out of the question to determine the precise differ- 
ence between pleasure and pain by looking within. Pleas- 
ures wane when we try to seize their essence. Pains in- 
crease with attention. The two are known by contrast, 
come together, persist in memory together, so that what 
we actually experience is the feeling known as pleasure- 
pain. It might seem possible to distinguish the pleasure 
element of the compound as ‘‘good,’’ the pain as ‘‘bad.”’ 
But pain is not necessarily a sign of what is evil or bad. 
It is often a sign of some bodily process needing attention. 
Increase of pain accompanies our persistence in disre- 
gsarding nature’s promptings, and so our prudence in- 
ereases aS we learn the meaning of pain. Pain teaches us 
to avoid excess. What we seek is a balance between the 
extremes of pleasure and pain by wise adaptation to 
nature’s conditions, that we may preserve our health, main- 
tain our sanity. When enjoyment runs into rapture or 
ecstasy it readily gives way to pain. Even what we call 
spiritual enjoyment may pass into sensuous excess. We 
seek conditions which we hope are likely to be free from 
misery, torment, agony. We tolerate conditions if we ex- 


Pleasure as the Good 121 


pect to be measurably comfortable. So we pass insensibly 
from attempted analyses of pleasure and pain to the con- 
sideration of values which we hope to attain by wiser 
adjustment. This is a tacit confession of disappointment 
in the effort to separate pleasure from pain and make it 
the criterion. 

Simple Hedonism.—The attempt to make pleasure the 
good is more clearly understood by disengaging our thought 
as far as possible from the complexities and enticements 
of modern life, and trying out the theory in simpler forms. 
Among the Greeks, just after the time of Socrates, the 
pleasure-theory appeared in the form commonly known 
as Hedonism, the theory that pleasure (Hedone) is the 
end or good which human beings normally seek. One would 
expect that among the Greeks, lovers of the beautiful in 
sense-forms as they were, this doctrine would appear, and 
that it would be in a measure idealistic, not the materialism 
of those who avowedly desire only sensuous delights.® 
Indeed, Socrates had already put a measure of emphasis 
on pleasure and utility in his conception of the good. 
Aristippus, of Cyrene, leader of these early hedonists, 
meant by pleasure that of the individual; since the indi- 
vidual knows only the impressions produced on himself. 
Bodily pleasures, being most intense, might have afforded 
the clue. But Aristippus gave recognition to mental pleas- 
ures, also to the fact that pleasures are transitory and 
must be realized in successive experiences. The pleasures 
compatible with self-command amid the enticements of 
sense, the tendencies to immoderate indulgence, are those 
which the wise man seeks; for a man should possess, not 
be possessed by pleasure. Some pleasures are to be rejected 
because of painful consequences, and the goal is the at- 
tainment of lasting joys, a state of moral content. 

Later Forms of Hedonism.—The difficulty in the formu- 
lation of this theory is in avoiding distinctions between 
kinds of pleasure, the pleasures of the moment and those 
that endure. If mental pleasures, such as friendship, 


5 Cf. F. A. Lange, History of Materialism, tr. by E. C. Thomas, 
1892, Vol. I, p. 44. 


122 Goodness and Freedom 


paternal and filial love, art, and literature, are to be pre- 
ferred to fleeting sensuous pleasures; and if a permanent 
state of satisfaction is to be attained through wisdom or 
control only, then the good would seem to be definable in 
rationalistic terms. There was conflict in the Cyrenaic 
school between a plea for the pleasure of the moment and 
the argument for permanent pleasure or happiness. With 
the teaching of Hegesias (the ‘‘persuader to die,’’) the 
doctrine passed over into pessimism; since life was said 
to yield more pain than pleasure, unalloyed happiness is 
a dream, and the end of life can not be realized.® 

This pessimistic conclusion, however, despite its force, 
was not the end of the matter; for the effort to identify 
pleasure with the good reappeared in the theory of Epi- 
curus that pleasure as the highest good or goal of existence 
is not the pleasure of passing sensations but that of a 
permanent state of peace and contentment, not that of 
the flesh but of the mind. There must then be a way to 
avoid excess, lest pleasure run into its opposite; and we 
should not exclude painful operations which lead to health 
and pleasure as results. The good as happiness therefore 
includes tact or prudence by which the wise man is to at- 
tain his end. Epicureanism thus became a philosophy of 
life and continued through ages as a typical point of view. 
It was associated historically with an ideal of friendship 
in a philosophic community, and is not to be judged by 
the voluptuousness of its later expression in Rome. 

Objections to Hedonism.—It has been objected that as 
pure pleasure is seldom if ever found, pleasure can not 
be the standard. The nearest approach to pure pleasure 
is in some pleasure of the moment; one minute being more 
full of pleasure than another, intensity of pleasure seems 
to be the test, and bodily are obviously more intense than 
mental pleasures. But intellectual pleasures may last 
longer, and as life advances pleasures of the body wane. 
Knowledge that all men desire pleasure is of no avail 
unless we know what things will given pleasure to this 


8 A. Weber, History of Philosophy, tr. by F. Thilly, 5th ed., 1902, 
D. 72. 


Pleasure as the Good 123 


or that individual.? What gives pleasure to one does not 
to another. Every choice may be pleasant, but this does 
not prove that it is a choice of pleasure. There is a dif- 
ference between (1) taking pleasure in an idea, and (2) 
actual experience anticipated and aimed at as pleasure. 
From the fact that there is an element of pleasure in all 
self-satisfaction it would be an erroneous inference that 
pleasure is the only object of desire. The satisfaction 
comes amidst various conditions, and pleasure is an ac- 
companiment of these. Other things besides pleasure have 
been both desired and striven for. The fact that pleasure 
is an accompaniment or sign is no proof that pleasure con- 
stitutes the end sought. When satisfaction results some 
universe of desire has been preferred to others, and in the 
reasons for preferring this group of desires as higher the 
real reason is found. While the hedonist does indeed 
strive to attain pure pleasure (as the absence of pain) on 
the assumption that all pleasures are alike in kind and 
differ only in intensity or degree, he immediately qualifies 
in favor of the pleasure of the moment, of the body, of 
the mind, of states selected because they endure longer, 
of the greater or higher good, and so his theory undergoes 
changes as it passes from the egoistic to the universalistic 
form. In brief, pleasure as a test is inseparable from other 
values, and so it becomes a question of elements other than 
those of our sensibility through which the satisfaction of 
our desires is to be obtained.® 

Hedonistic Calculus.—Partisans of pleasure as the good 
have long sought to find a calculus of pleasures. The dif- 
ficulties are already apparent from what we have said about 
the elusive character of pleasure and its intimate relation- 
ship with pain. To try to adopt such a caleulus it would 
be necessary to ignore differences of kind, and insist, 
with Bentham, that pleasures differ only in intensity and 


7Cf. G. S. Fullerton, A Handbook of Ethical Theory, 1922, p. 116. 

8See T. H. Green, Prolegomena to Ethics, 3d ed., pp. 165, 232. 

9See objections by J. S. Mackenzie, 4 Manual of Ethics, 4th ed., 
1901, p, 208, foll.; J. Seth, Hthical Principles, 4th ed., 1898, pp, 63, 
83, foll. 


124 Goodness and Freedom 


duration.° We would then seek out pleasures that are 
‘‘intense, long, speedy, certain, fruitful, pure.’’ But 
granted that some pleasures are clung to because intense 
or long, it is clear that only in retrospect are we able to 
discern pleasures which we then take to have been ‘‘fruit- 
ful’’ or ‘‘pure.’’ But the purity would remain a value 
assigned to pleasure because of its quality, not a matter 
of precise judgment quantitatively to be compared with 
other pleasures and as precisely contrasted with pains. 
We estimate neither pains nor pleasures apart from their 
qualities. Even when we try to compare pleasures of the 
body with pleasures of the mind, we find it impossible to 
hold to questions of quantity; for there are higher and 
lower pleasures of both mind and body, and when we select 
pleasures from one group or the other we choose them be- 
cause on the whole those selected accord with our prefer- 
ences. We do not judge by units of pleasure, or reject 
an experience because of so many units of pain. Pleasures 
group themselves, but their sum is not precise. Nor does 
it follow that the summation of pleasures is the equivalent 
of pleasure as such generalized as the greatest good. There 
is then no quantitative way to decide the issues, although 
duration and intensity enter into judgments in relation 
with the far more significant questions of quality. Pleas- 
ures are declared eligible, not because they can be measured 
or defined, but because we appreciate their worth in vari- 
ous connections. 

The Calculus Defended.—Despite repeated objections 
to the idea of a calculus, the notion has persisted, as in 
Rashdall’s eritique.*+ Rashdall finds the truth in simple 
hedonism to be (1) the fact that the gratification of every 
desire necessarily gives pleasure, hence is conceived of as 
pleasant in idea before the desire is accomplished, and (2) 
this pictured pleasantness of the gratification of a desire 
oreatly adds to its strength? Critics of hedonism admit 
that pleasure is a good, a possible object of desire, that there 


10 See L. A. Selby-Bigge, British Moralists, 1897, Vol. I, pp. 349, 


356. 
11H, Rashdall, The Theory of Good and Evil, 1907, Vol, II, Chap. I, 
12 Op cit., Vol. I, pp. 31, 33. 


Pleasure as the Good 125 


are disinterested desires; it is not true that all pleasure 
arises from satisfaction of desire for something else: every 
pleasure has a content, and it is legitimate to desire the 
content merely on account of its pleasantness.1? The ob- 
jection that we can not enjoy a sum of pleasures does not 
hold; for all pleasure is in tyme, and if we could not enjoy 
pleasure without having it all at once no pleasure could be 
enjoyed at all. All that the argument requires is that one 
whole state of consciousness may be pronounced more pleas- 
ant than another, that the total pleasure is made up of 
successive moments; and that a certain degree of intensity 
is Judged equivalent to a certain duration. It is psycho- 
logically possible then to compare various lots of pleasure, 
to say which is the greatest with regard to duration and 
intensity; it is intelligible to aim at the greatest pleasure 
on the whole. 

Still Rashdall’s argument passes beyond hedonism, with 
‘the admission that pleasure is a good rather than the good,'* 
and so the discussion turns to a study of ‘‘the commensura- 
bility of all values,’’?° on the ground that other goods— 
intellectual cultivation and activity, ssthetic cultivation, 
emotions of various kinds—are of more intrinsic value. 
Pleasure remains as one element of consciousness to which 
we can assign ultimate value, although we may not attach 
value in proportion to pleasantness. It then becomes a 
question how to choose between different goods. 

Pleasure and Happiness.—Unable to maintain that 
pleasure is simply pleasure, always of the same kind, the 
hedonist modifies his terminology by identifying pleasure 
with happiness, sometimes regarded as the more dignified 
term. Happiness is said to refer to the whole experience, 
while pleasure is particular; and so Bentham’s phrase is 
‘‘the greatest happiness of the greatest number.’’ Happi- 
ness is also classified as permanent, pleasure as transient; 
Paley calls it a state, and pleasure a feeling; while Janet 
holds that happiness is the organization of pleasures. 


13 Tbid., Vol. II, p. 7, foll. 
14 Ibid., p. 37. 
15 [bid., Book II, Chap. II. 


126 Goodness and Freedom 


Pleasure is said to relate to the sensuous, in contrast with 
happiness as more interior, dependent on what is nearest 
the self, for example, the family and its welfare; and so 
happiness has been described as personal feeling plus an 
objective basis or social ground, Happiness ranges up and 
down the scale of experience, and is not easily placed; it is 
the end to be sought, pleasure being incidental. Or, more 
generally speaking, happiness is an end, a good. 

The question then is, Is pleasure the test of conduct 
which aims at happiness? Is there any way to attain the 
permanent state by choosing the various transitory pleas- 
ures said to be incidental-to it? The difficulty is as great 
as before, for while pleasure may be a sign of a normal 
process making toward the good, the repetition of the proc- 
ess because it was pleasurable may not mean that the ex- 
perience is equally beneficial. Pleasure is not established 
as the eriterion, because exercise of a function brought 
pleasure. This does not appear to have been the test in 
primitive life, Pleasure-loving comes in with civilization, 
and its increase involves excess rather than that modera- 
tion of life which makes for happiness. The pursuit of 
happiness as a good has meant a departure from pleasure 
as the test and adoption of the wise man’s ideal, instead. 

Another qualification has also entered in, namely, the 
change from egoistic hedonism to universalistic. Thus ac- 
cording to Bentham each man is to count for one only, it 
is the greatest pleasure of all that is to be sought; and 
instead of seeking pleasure for one’s self one should give 
pleasure to others. The greatest happiness of the greatest 
number therefore means giving up personal pleasure in 
response to an altruistic motive.“ And so hedonism passes 
from the fact that man does pursue pleasure to the affirma- 
tion that he owght to aim at pleasure. 

Happiness as the Test.—Critics have pointed out how- 
ever that if the happiness of others is to be made the test 
we would still need a calculus of pleasures to make sure 
that a certain act will give greater pleasure than other 
deeds with which it is to be compared. We lack the objec- 
tive standard by which pleasures and pains can be gradu- 


Pleasure as the Good 127 


ated as we would contrast heat and cold. The conditions 
under which an experience occurs are essential to it and 
inseparable from it, and at best we can merely compare 
the memory of a past experience with a present experience 
at present. To make the comparison precise we would need 
to make allowances for the romantic glow which gathers 
about past experiences, and re-estimate the pains which 
have lessened with time. Even then it is impossible to 
put one’s self back into the same conditions. Comparing 
notes with other people, we find that their experiences 
seem no less variable, in the case, for instance, of experi- 
ences in foreign lands or service at home, where so very 
much depends on the attitude toward the given conditions, 
the work to be done, the associates with whom one works. 
It seems impossible that pleasure shall be the standard by 
which to make the decisive comparison. Experience shows 
that we are more likely to win pleasure while aiming at 
something else. Indeed, we must not only forget self but 
forget pleasure, and aim at the sort of welfare for others 
which may bring happiness as an accompaniment; since 
the direct pursuit of happiness is likely to end in disap- 
pointment. 

Happiness as a Motive.—We conclude then that pleas- 
ure is not the prompter, and happiness is not the exclusive 
goal of human action making toward the good. What dis- 
closes itself originally is an activity manifesting various 
tendencies, as in case of the infant throwing its arms and 
legs about, the child manifesting curiosity, the youth show- 
ing signs of inventiveness. The creative instinct begins to 
function prior to the pleasure taken in its activity and 
development. In general, man begins life on the instinctive 
level, pleasure becomes associated with certain functions 
after a time, and pleasure is one of various associates which 
influence function, as indeed desire for pleasure is one 
of various desires effective in leading toward action. The 
satisfaction of desire accompanies successful efforts in be- 
half of knowledge and other ends pursued with increasing 
interest as life advances, but these ends are sought for 
their own sake or for what they will bring, not alone for 


128 Goodness and Freedom 


the satisfaction which hedonists identify with pleasure. 
Again, the admission of an altruistic motive in the quest 
for the happiness of the greatest number implies the en- 
largement of the whole sphere of interests in the welfare 
of others; hence pity, sympathy, kindness, love of service 
enter into the account, also disinterestedness. The altru- 
istic motive once admitted, there is no road back to the posi- 
tion that pursuit of pleasure is the real motive. The pres- 
ence of an element of personal satisfaction in service for 
others is not proof that this was the predominant motive. 
Experience shows that we can not have the satisfactions 
of service unless we actually serve. The true hero is not 
the one who goes forth in quest of glory, but the one who, 
forgetting all else, gives himself to the deed to be wroaght. 

The Element of Satisfaction—So too in any field 
where success comes, in the fine arts, in business, in teach- 
ing, varied aims find expression in downright effort, no one 
of these aims being entirely separable from the others, no 
aim being complete. It is these aims working together 
which lead to satisfaction. The life which yields satisfac- 
tion realizes the larger self, and the resulting happiness 
is a sign, not because it fulfills the pleasures experienced 
along the way, but because the self-realization is many- 
sided. If then by self-realization we mean the concrete 
and harmonious expression of all the eligible sides of our 
nature, we may assign to pleasure, not a precise place in 
the scale, but the place attributable to an added element, 
not directly sought, not directly pursued, sometimes 
thought of, again forgotten, but appearing and re-appear- 
ing aS an accompaniment. In this progress toward satis- 
faction, no aim, such as truth, is complete in itself, but all 
belong together in what we call an ideal. One aim, such 
as truth or service, may be central, and this we call by 
the term ‘‘purpose’’ to dignify it in contrast with allied 
or contributory aims. 

signs of Well-being.—In such a relationship pleasure 
is plainly contributory, while happiness is a sign of the 
harmony between the various aims and activities through 
which the moral purpose is realized. The pleasure experi- 


Pleasure as the Good 129 


enced by the man who is doing well the work he can best 
do in the world, such as teaching, adds to the effectiveness 
of his work day by day; and absence of pleasure is an indi- 
cation that adjustment to life is not complete. Happiness 
becomes a permanent possession crowning life month by 
month and year by year as evidence that the various activ- 
ities allied with the central aim or purpose is the right 
one. It is a sign of ‘‘the dance of life,’’ the preservation 
of freedom of spirit. In this sense it is not only highly 
desirable but a necessity, a direct sign that one is making 
progress toward fullness of life. Hence we use the term 
‘‘joy’’ as a test in the last analysis: unless a man finds 
joy in his work he is not giving his best. Joy surpasses 
all caleulation. It comes as pure gift, full measure running 
ever. It is quiet, deeply interior, yielding inspiration even 
when outwardly life is disappointing and the conditions 
of life hard in the extreme. 

Need of a Scale.—Pleasure, then is a good, a good ‘‘in 
relation to,’’ good for the results to which it contributes; 
as a sign, indicating physical and mental health; as a func- 
tion productive in codperation with other functions; and as 
in part a value in itself, for instance, in the pleasures of 
relaxation or pure recreation. Happiness is no mere sum 
of pleasures, but is the higher term, signifying pleasures 
which have undergone the test and are attainable when not 
directly pursued. While then there is no ealeulus of pleas- 
ures, there is an art of life involving the cultivation of 
favoring conditions. Just what the essentials are is a 
matter of opinion. But they are commonly said to include 
(1) a means of livelihood, (2) friends, (8) a home, (4) a 
fair degree of health, (5) occasional rest, recreation or 
change, (6) increasing knowledge or skill, (7) opportuni- 
ties to serve or opportunities for self-expression correspond- 
ing to the state of development. While the study of pleas- 
ure might lead to pessimism, as indeed pleasure-loving 
often leads to misery, knowledge of the constituents of 
happiness may lead to optimism. Pleasure is apt to be 
mere appearance, while happiness is reality. Pleasure is 
purely relative, and although happiness is not absolute it 


130 Goodness and Freedom 


may be constant: it involves a triumphant attitude. Our 
working faith generates optimism despite appearances 
which dishearten. In terms of faith as in behalf of service 
for others we throw ourselves into our work, and so the 
interest we take, is once more a sign. Devotion to a pur- 
pose means subordination of pleasures, especially those 
that are intense and exhausting; hence a scale of values 
is imperative. 

Questions.—To what extent is love of pleasure the same 
as selfishness ? 

What is the chief reason why the belief that pleasure 
is the good appears and reappears throughout history? 

Does love of pleasure invariably decrease with the devel- 
opment of the intellectual life? 

What practical inference is to be drawn in behalf of the 
art of life, from the conclusions that desires tend toward 
excess, that pleasures run into pain, and that happiness is 
at best a sign of well-being, not the sole standard ? 

What light is thrown on prudence, self-control, temper- 
ance (as a virtue), and wisdom (as a test of virtue) ? 


REFERENCES 


BraDiey, F. H., Ethical Studies, 1876, Chap. ITI. 

Mackenzig, J. 8., A Manual of Ethics, 4th ed., 1901, Bk. IT, 
Chaps. I, I, IV. 

MurrHeEAD, J. H., The Elements of Ethics, 1892, Bk. III, Chap. I. 

SETH, J., Hthical Principles, 7th ed., 1904, Part I, Chap. I. 

Dewey AND Turts, Ethics, 1908, Chap. XIV. 

Everett, W. G., Moral Values, 1918, Chap. III, Sees. I, IT. 

RASHDALL, H., The Theory of Good and Evil, 1907, Vol. I, Chap. 
II; Vol. II, Chap. I. 

Sipewick, H., The Methods of Ethics, (1874), 1890, Bk. I, 
Chap. IV, 


CHAPTER IX 
UTILITARIANISM AND EVOLUTION 


Utility as the Good.—It is significant that in the later 
development of the doctrine that pleasure is the good the 
theory is constantly undergoing change. Hedonism in its 
simple form is sometimes called psychological hedonism, to 
distinguish it from ethical hedonism, the theory that pleas- 
ure ought to be pursued as the good. Ethical hedonism, 
emphasizing the pleasure or happiness of others (universal- 
istic hedonism) is usually known as Utilitarianism, the 
theory that utility rather than sympathy, or any other 
test that might be used is the test of the good. As applied 
by Bentham, this term is the equivalent of ‘‘the greatest 
happiness principle.’’ The title of Bentham’s chief work, 
An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legisla- 
tion,’ is in itself significant. Bentham does not find in the 
promptings to happiness within the individual a sufficient 
incentive. Consequently he turns to various objective or 
social considerations, and seeks to enforce the happiness 
principle by appeal to various sanctions—physieal, politi- 
eal, moral or popular, and religious—which bring pressure 
to bear upon the individual, that his conduct may be won 
over to the general good.? 

Mill’s Doctrine—John Stuart Mill, with whose name 
utilitarianism is more directly associated, adopted Ben- 
tham’s conception of happiness and developed it still 
further in the social direction. The good, he maintained, 
ean not be proved good, but is admitted to be so, and what 
is needed is a comprehensive formula: happiness is the only 
thing desirable as an end, that is, pleasure, with exemption 
from pain; the useful, including the agreeable.* Actions 

11780. See Selby-Bigge, op. cit., Vol. I, p. 349, for selections. 


2Cf. Everett, op. cit., p. 64. 
3 Utilitariamsm, 1863, p. 9. 


131 


132 Goodness and Freedom 


are right in proportion as they tend to produce happiness, 
wrong in so far as they tend to produce the reverse of hap- 
piness. Mill is quite ready to admit that the pleasures of 
the intellect, the feelings, and the imagination are higher 
in value; he also admits that there are kinds of pleasure, 
quality as well as quantity, the standard being the com- 
petent judgments of those well formed. Mill finds that 
people really prefer the higher pleasures, despite their sus- 
ceptibility to the lower. Since the end to be pursued is 
not the agent’s own greatest happiness, but the happiness 
of all concerned, and this in the greatest amount, there is 
need of the impartiality of the disinterested observer: the 
Golden Rule expresses the principle of utility. To do to 
others as you would have them do to you, and to love your 
neighbor as yourself is to realize the ideal of utilitarian 
morality. For each person’s happiness is to count for as 
much as another’s, and our social nature is the ultimate 
sanction of the good. The individual is subject to both 
external and internal sanctions. The internal sanction is 
feeling, that is, conscience, which involves a shrinking from 
wrong action, and is supported by the conscientious feel- 
ings of mankind in general: conscience binds those who 
have these feelings, and conscience is as binding as if the 
basis of morality were some superior order of reality. 

Social Utility—Great emphasis belongs on ‘‘the feeling 
of unity with our fellow-creatures.’’ Utility involves jus- 
tice, keeping faith, impartiality, equality; and duty differ- 
entiates justice, morality, or worthiness from expediency.‘ 
Justice is derived from the social, sympathetic promptings 
of mankind; it implies a rule of conduct and a sentiment 
which sanctions the rule. To have ‘‘a right’’ means that 
society must guarantee it, general utility being the reason. 
Social utility then is more fundamental than justice. Yet 
justice remains the name for the most important social 
utilities, those which are more absolute or imperative, 
guarded as they are by a sentiment different both in kind 
and degree. 

Objections to Mill’s Doctrine.—In thus passing almost 

4 See op. ctt., Chap. V. 


Utihtarianism and Evolution 133 


unwittingly from the consideration of pleasure as an indi- 
vidual experience to matters of general utility, justice, and 
the Golden Rule, Mill surrenders the utilitarian principle. 
He (1) admits quality as well as quantity of pleasure, and 
so gives up the traditional assumption that pleasure is 
simply pleasure, and is all of one sort; (2) puts justice 
in a superior position as essential to social utility; (3) ar- 
gues for happiness so as to show at best that happiness is 
a constituent, not the essence of the good; (4) makes a 
leap from each person’s desire for happiness to that of 
the greatest happiness of all; (5) appeals to the fact that 
men desire happiness, that will is produced by desire, that 
virtue becomes an end, moral feelings are acquired, justice 
is derived by social experience; but offers no central prin- 
ciple of moral obligation; (6) his idea of the self passes 
beyond utilitarianism to a conception of conscience as the 
binding principle. To unify the principles which Mill 
introduces would be to start with the conception of man 
as social, possessing conscience, secking happiness as well 
as justice; and to see that man’s progress depends, not on 
desire for pleasure, but on desire for action, which later 
yields desire for happiness. The sum of pleasures might 
have remained the same for centuries, and yet there may 
have been moral advancement.’ What is needed is a con- 
ception of appropriate objects of activity through which 
self-realization is to be attained, a conception which includes 
Mill’s constructive results. 

Evolutionary Hedonism.—Mill partly anticipated the 
evolutionary view of morality as derived from social ex- 
perience, from the sympathetic instincts of the race. Her- 
bert Spencer undertook to explain the whole fact of man’s 
moral conduct by appeal to the evolution of conduct in 
general from simple to complex.* Conduct, conceived as a 
whole, is defined as ‘‘the continuous adjustment of internal 
relations to external relations’’; it gains moral sanction as 


5 For other criticisms, see J. Royce, The Religious Aspect of 
Philosophy, 1885, p. 164; J. Martineau, Types of Ethical Theory, 
Vol. II, p. 325. 

6 Data of Ethics, 1879. 


134 Goodness and Freedom 


the activities become less militant, more industrial, with a 
view to codperation and mutual aid. Man’s other-regard- 
ing desires usually need moral enforcement. The test is 
this: man’s conduct is good if its total effects are pleasur- 
able, if it is conducive to life; the ultimate test of perfec- 
tion itself would be conduciveness to happiness. Moral 
principles must conform to physical necessities. Evolution 
in conduct is toward a balance of internal actions in the 
face of external forces tending to overthrow it; in the 
moral life this balance approaches most nearly to complete- 
ness. But the individual can not advance beyond society ; 
complete life in a complete society would mean complete 
equilibrium between the codrdinated activities. Biologi- 
eally, this moving equilibrium is balance of functions: 
every pleasure increases vitality, every pain decreases it. 
Psychologically, it is a question of complexes of feeling; 
sensations are often to be obeyed rather than sentiments; 
the lower promptings are not always inferior. The essen- 
tial trait in moral consciousness is the control of feelings 
by feelings; obligation arises with the notion of restraint: 
lower restraints come first, to make possible the moral intui- 
tions which result from accumulated experience or utility, 
gradually organized and inherited. The sentiment of duty 
is generated through the compounding of feelings, the idea 
of authority, and the element of coerciveness. The social 
organism ranks higher than its units. The universal basis 
of cooperation is the proportioning of benefits received to 
services rendered, sympathy being the root of both justice 
and benevolence. Egoism is prior to altruism, and must 
take precedence over it: the pursuit of individual happi- 
ness is the first requisite to attainment of the greatest gen- 
eral happiness. But altruism has been essential from the 
start, and self-sacrifice is no less primordial than self-pres- 
ervation, and altruism grows with social evolution. 
Criticism of Spencer’s Ethics—In Spencer’s doctrine 
the pleasure-theory finds support in the philosophy of evo- 
lution, and evolutional hedonism in various forms has per- 
sisted as an ethical type since Spencer’s time. The general 
objection is that made respecting any theory which under- 


Utilitarianism and Evolution 135 


takes to judge the higher by the lower, internal conduct 
by external behavior, mental life by pleasure biologically 
interpreted, with pain identified with evil, and pleasure 
uncritically accepted as the test of goodness. No adequate 
basis of union between the individual and society is pro- 
posed. Spencer’s hedonism is open to the same objections 
which we have already considered. His other ethical prin- 
ciples, such as justice, point forward to a higher type of 
theory than his evolutionism is able to supply.’ 

The Organic View.—Leslie Stephen develops essentially 
the same point of view by contributing a conception of 
society as an organic growth, a whole whose laws can be 
studied, morality being a product of the social factor.® 
The individual is said to be moralized through his identi- 
fication with the social organism; the conditions of the 
security of morality are the conditions of the persistence 
of society. Stephen’s theory is a modified universalistic 
hedonism in terms of the inner life, and an internal moral 
law, which in the last analysis relates to the moral agent, 
to the character which conforms to a certain type. This 
view enables him to approximate the truths of ethical ideal- 
ism. Emphasis falls on feeling, however, not on reason: 
it is feeling which is said to determine conduct. This feel- 
ing is not due to a judgment, but is a simple unanalyzable 
fact. Love and hate, desire and aversion are said to de- 
termine our conduct as physical forces determine the move- 
ments of a body. The subjective unity of sentiment corre- 
sponds to the objective unity of organization. The pain- 
fulness of a state is a sufficient, ultimate and sole reason 
for avoiding it.2 Social motives represent the survival of 
an instinct determined by its utility.° The development 
of society as an organism implies custom in the race, habit 
in the individual. Morality represents the sum of the pre- 
servative instincts of a society. Sympathy is not an addi- 
tional instinct, but it is implied in the structure of knowl- 


7 For other objections, see Royce, op. cit., pp. 70, 177; Martineau, 
op. ctt., p. 360. 

8 The Science of Ethics, 1882. 

9 Op. cit., p. 82. 

10 Ibid., p. 93. 


136 Goodness and Freedom 


edge: to know that a man has certain feelings is to have 
representative feelings not equal in intensity but identical 
in kind. Sympathy and reason have so far an identical 
factor, each implies the other.44 Conscience means the 
pain felt by the wrong-doer, or the sensibility implied by 
that pain, and is neither a distinct emotion nor a purely 
intellectual judgment.’? As the moral law 1s, in brief, con- 
formity to the conditions of social welfare, conscience is the 
name of the intrinsic motives to such conformity, the utter- 
ance of the public spirit of the race.1* No hedonistic caleu- 
lus is possible or necessary. The utilitarianism of the past 
failed because it took on an external view of morality, 
judged from consequences exclusively, without regard to 
the motives of the agent. 

For Stephen a law becomes truly moral when it takes 
an internal form. While utilitarianism denied the possi- 
bility of virtue for its own sake, Stephen holds that in a 
sense there is no other real virtue. The moral law then 
is to be stated unconditionally in the form Be this, not in 
the form Do this. Morality is essentially a determination 
of character.14 Stephen advances still further toward an 
idealistic position by maintaining that there are times for 
self-sacrifice when one must choose between happiness and 
duty; henee happiness and duty do not coincide. There 
is indeed no absolute coincidence between virtue and happi- 
ness. Stephen is quite willing to admit the unsolved prob- 
lems of this position. In his treatise happiness as the test 
gives way to the health of the social organism or social 
tissue, although he holds that health and happiness coin- 
cide.1® 

Sidgwick’s View.—Sidgwick shows that there is a great 
difference between saying that virtue is always productive 
of happiness, and saying that the right action under all 
circumstances is the one which will produce the greatest 


11 Ibid., p. 230. 
12 Ibid., p. 315. 
13 Ibid., p. 349. 
14 Ibid., p. 385. 
45 See Seth, op. cit., p. 105; Martineau, op. cit., p. 49. 


Utilitarianism and Evolution 137 


possible happiness on the whole.1° There are no adequate 
grounds for holding that if we aim exclusively at the pres- 
ervation of the organism we shall secure the maximum 
attainable happiness of its individual members.’’  Utili- 
tarlanism can not become a morality de novo, either for 
man as he is or as he ought to be. The utilitarian must 
start with the existing social order. The implied rules and 
machinery are not precisely or completely adapted to the 
production of the greatest possible happiness for sentient 
beings. It is impossible on empirical grounds to demon- 
strate the inseparable connection between utilitarian duty 
and the greatest happiness of the individual who conforms 
to such duty.*® Hence Sidgwick modifies his position in 
part in favor of the intuitive principles, prudence and jus- 
tice: the latter provides a basis for the distribution of the 
means of happiness. But Sidgwick also finds difficulties in 
intuitionism, and his results as a whole are not positive. 

Ideal Utilitarianism.—Rashdall, who adopts the term 
‘‘ideal utilitarianism,’’ and who seems to give up with re- 
luctance the view that pleasure is the good, is led by his 
discussion to the conclusion that pleasure and value can 
not be identified ; since all the fallacies of hedonism would 
then follow, and there are other elements in the supremely 
valuable kind of conscious life.t®? All goods can indeed be 
compared, and when we can not have both we may choose 
between the higher and lower.?° But he inclines toward 
sensibility rather than reason, that is, toward immediate 
feeling as something which the lower sourees of satisfac- 
tion have in common with the higher. Happiness is de- 
finable as ‘‘satisfaction with one’s existence as a whole.’’ 74 
It can not be identified even with the higher or more re- 
fined kinds of pleasure; there may be many pleasures and 
yet one may be unhappy, also much hardship and yet hap- 
piness. Still the final statement is, ‘‘A happy life must 

16H. Sidgwick, The Methods of Ethics, 4th ed., 1890, p. 424. 

17 Op, cit., p. 424, 

18 Ibid., p. 501. 

19.0p.\ctt., Vol. 11; p. 55. 


20 See discussion of cases, ibid., p. 43, 
21 Ibid., p. 57, 


138 Goodness and Freedom 


include some pleasure: all happiness is pleasurable, though 
not all pleasure is happiness.’’ On the whole goodness 
tends to make people happy, though men are not happy in 
proportion to their goodness. 

Once more the theory that tries to keep pleasure or 
happiness to the fore falls short of positive results. Rash- 
dall finds that true good is not in knowledge, in pleasure, 
or in virtue alone; yet that ‘‘no amount of good can com- 
pensate for the absence or deficiency of the other.’’?? It 
is ‘‘for the purpose of choosing between goods’’ that they 
are commensurable, the value of an act being dependent 
on its consequences taken together. We can not say that 
the ideal is either perfect happiness or perfect well-being. 
The ideal life or the good is an ultimate conception not to 
be further defined.2? We leave the matter thus: ‘‘the 
morality of our actions is to be ultimately determined by 
its tendency to promote a universal end, which end itself 
consists of many ends, and in particular two—morality and 
pleasure.’’?* The content is to be expressed by enumerat- 
ing various aspects of the ultimate conception and then 
explaining how they are to be combined. Rashdall declines 
to adopt the view that self-realization is the ideal which 
best codrdinates the several elements, and he is not satis- 
fied with self-sacrifice as the standard. We shall find rea- 
son to agree with him in so far as he emphasizes the wealth- 
iness of content of the ideal life. When utilitarianism be- 
comes ‘‘ideal’’ it readily passes into idealism. 

Rashdall finds nothing in his theory inconsistent with 
fullest admission that morality has been gradually 
evolved,?> and in this most of the later moralists would 
agree. Yet particular theories of evolution fall short, as 
when Spencer, for example, fails to justify moral maxims, 
to explain the idea of moral obligation, to assign natural 
selection to its proper place, and to supply a practical 
guide to his pleasure-theory.?° Darwinism made a perma- 


22 [bid., p. 39. 

23 Ibid., p. 60. 

24 Op. cit., Vol. I, p. 219. 
25 Op. cit., Vol. II, p. 356. 
26 Ibid., p. 368, foll. 


Utilitarianism and Evolution 139 


nent contribution by excluding the cruder intuitionism, em- 
phasizing the influence of physical conditions and the 
physiological truth that race maintenance requires the 
elimination of the unfit. Dewey and Tufts, analyzing the 
evolutionary view of self-assertion for which scientific sanc- 
tion is claimed by appeal to Darwin, criticize the natural- 
istic school of moralists by pointing out that (1) the theory 
exaggerates the role of antagonistic competitive struggle 
in the Darwinian theory; (2) while the idea of power, 
efficiency, or achievement is perverse.2” We shall return 
to the question of self-assertion in a later chapter. 

The Value of Utilitarianism.—We find then that hedon- 
ism can be best understood apart from the theory of evo- 
lution. The objections to it in the foregoing chapter are 
conclusive. Had these objections been raised prior to the 
adoption of evolutionism, it would not have been worth 
while to try the venture once more. So too utilitarianism 
may be considered apart from the attempt to establish the 
theory on evolutionary grounds. The significant thing 
about it, notably in the case of John Stuart Mill, is that 
when arguing for utility one is contending for much more 
than for happiness; and so Mill’s book, still very readable 
and persuasive, helps to foster broader conceptions essen- 
tial to a rationalistic theory. For if we agree that (1) 
there are both lower and higher moral states, (2) that 
conscience exists as a standard, (3) that justice is to be 
assigned a high place in the scale, and (4) that it is essen- 
tially a question of the Golden Rule, there is no road back 
to the position which utilitarians sought to maintain in 
their allegiance to happiness as the good. The appeal to 
evolution as an explanation is not convincing. What it 
accomplishes, in Spencer’s ease, is the introduction of bio- 
legical evidences that pleasure has played its part in the 
whole process. But the fact that pleasure is of biological 
significance is not an argument in favor of pleasure as the 
test. It is still a question what ought to be pursued as the 
good, and when this question is raised we have Mill’s large- 


27 Hthics, p. 868. See, also, Muirhead, Elements of Ethics, p. 136. 


140 Goodness and Freedom 


minded answer in favor of conscience, justice, and the 
Golden Rule. 

Estimate of Evolution.—The effort to account for our 
whole moral life in terms of evolution is to be distinguished 
from the attempt to prove that pleasure is the good by 
identifying pleasure with well-being as the goal of man’s 
whole conduct. The philosophy of evolution once before 
us aS a program, it becomes a question of tracing the de- 
velopment of instincts and emotions, especially those with 
an altruistic trend, from the level of development attained 
by the higher animals to the beginnings of morality in 
man. We have then the problem of the origin of the so- 
called moral instinct, the moral sentiments, the sense of 
moral obligation, the function of conscience; also the ques- 
tion whether, on the whole, nature in the struggle of the 
strongest or fittest to survive, favors the moral life, or 
whether there is such an antagonism as that to which Hux- 
ley called attention. The roads lead in various directions. 
One might identify Darwinism with emphasis on brute 
force and arrive at conclusions very remote from idealism 
in ethics. Or one might use the philosophy of evolution 
with diseretion and consider the problem of moral progress 
from the point of view of successive ideals tending toward 
the conservation of values, as in Alexander’s Moral Order 
and Progress; to which we shall refer in another chapter. 
Again, one might make extensive studies of the whole field 
of moral evolution without attempting to prove either real- 
ism or idealism, letting the facts speak for themselves, as 
in Myers’ History as Past Ethics and Hobhouse’s Morals 
im Evolution. The theory of evolution finds its proper 
place in such studies. It yields the total natural environ- 
ment. The wealth of results is so great that there is no 
road to identification between the lower levels of mental 
life and the moral ideal, no hope of accounting for the 
higher in terms of the lower. But the fact is established 
that morals have had an evolution, that the moral life thus 
evolved is rich in possibilities, and that no criterion of 
moral progress can be satisfactory which does not find its 
elues in this abundant wealth of our evolutionary history. 


Utilitarianism and Evolution 141 


Westermarck brings to his exhaustive studies, summed up 
in his Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas, an im- 
perfect psychology and a thesis to defend. Hence his work 
has limited value. But granted an adequate psychology, 
one which gives full place to will and reason, as well as to 
the desires and emotions, it becomes a question of the grad- 
ual acquisition and conservation of the total content of 
the moral life, including the highest contributions of the 
greatest nations. 

We are not then concerned with the mere attempt to 
explain the beginnings of morality, as if the whole thesis 
in favor of evolution were proved by accounting for the 
conscience of primitive tribes. We no longer capitulate 
in favor of merely biological forces. Instead, we are inter- 
ested in special problems. Granted conscience at its best, 
what has been its history through the ages, disclosing as 
they do change amidst persistence, varied judgments yet 
a certain constancy of moral conviction? Granted moral 
intuition at its best, how have we come by these fine intui- 
tions of today, with their Greek and Christian elements? 
Granted the conservation of moral values, what is the later 
history of our moral idealism? And so as we turn, in the 
next chapter, to a study of rationalism our interest is not 
in the possible derivation of reason from an instinct, from 
the non-rational or the irrational; we are concerned with 
reason in full estate, as that principle of our nature which 
yields universals, discerns the permanent amidst the tran- 
sient, the significant amid the commonplace. 

Moral Reason and Evolution.—Evolutionists who have 
beaten reason down to the thinnest level have met with 
little success in their efforts to account for what was left. 
So too pragmatists who have reduced reason or truth to 
what ‘‘works,’’ to mere utility, have signally failed. Rea- 
son, too, has had its history. It has grown up in closest 
alliance with practice. We all use reason in behalf of 
utility. But the profounder fact is that by aid of reason 
we rise above mere ideas accepted as true because they 
work; we generalize, arrive at knowledge of law, order, a 
conception of the nature of things. The advance from cus- 


142 Goodness and Freedom 


tom to morality, from precepts to a conception of moral 
law is in brief the advance to moral reason. To minimize 
reason, identify it with habit or practice, or to ideas found 
to possess utility in a given tribe, would be to miss the 
slgenificance of one of the greatest moments in human his- 
tory, signalized in part by the insights of Confucius and 
other law-givers, but witnessing its really decisive instance 
in the profound meditations of Socrates. 

An adequate theory of rational evolution must account 
for Socrates, and with Socrates for Plato and Aristotle, 
hence for ethics as a science, for all science, and philoso- 
phy as the science of sciences. Granted Socrates, our 
method can no longer be merely genetic. Socrates arrived 
at moral conviction by profound analysis, without regard 
for the decrees of custom; living out what he believed, 
discerning the moral law in actual moral conduct, and 
helping others to see the moral universal. So too each 
student who, arriving at the stage of insight, comes 
to understand the significance of the moral law, finds that 
he possesses the essentials in his own selfhood, and must 
verify the classic distinctions and principles—however the 
race may have come by its moral convictions. 


REFERENCES 


SPENCER, H., Data of Ethics, 1879. 

Miu, J. 8., Utilitarianism, 1863. 

STEPHEN, L., The Science of Ethics, 1882. 

Siwewick, H., The Methods of Ethics (1874), 1890, Bk. IT. 

Dewey AND Turts, Ethics, Chap. XIV. 

MartTINEAU, J., Types of Ethical Theory, Vol. II, Bk. II, Branch 
I, Chaps. I, II. 

RASHDALL, H., The Theory of Good and Evil, Vol. II, Bk. II, 
Chap. IT; Bk. III, Chap. IV. 

WiuuraAMs, C. M., A Review of the Systems of Ethics, 1893. 

Macxenziz, J. 8., Manual of Ethics, Bk. II, Chap. IV. 

SetH, J., Ethical Principles, pp. 96, 101. 

EVERETT, W. G., Moral Values, Chap. III, Sees. ITI-V. 


CHAPTER X 
STOICISM AND SELF-SACRIFICE 


Discipline.—In our study of hedonism we have found 
that emphasis falls on the feelings and desires, but with 
an increasing tendency to introduce reason as the clue to 
happiness. It is natural that reason in its turn should be 
regarded as the standard, and that the effort should be 
made to exclude the sensibilities as nearly as possible. 
Rationalism has assumed a number of typical forms, begin- 
ning with Cynicism, which offered an alternative to the 
hedonism of the Cyrenaics by seeking the good through 
training or discipline rather than through the pursuit of 
pleasure. 

Socrates had placed much emphasis on discipline. He 
was described by Xenophon as ‘‘the most sober and chaste 
of all mankind, supporting with equal cheerfulness the 
extreme, whether of heat or cold . . . [he] shrank at no 
hardships, declined no labor, and knew so perfectly how 
to moderate his desires as to make the little he possessed 
altogether sufficient.’’ He is said to have reclaimed many 
from vices. He put stress on exercise, moderate eating, 
and keeping the body in health. He was so moderate in 
his wants that any one willing to work could have sup- 
ported him. Xenophon assures us that Socrates’ whole 
life was characterized by temperance. He loved anything 
genuine, honest, sincere. He exposed vanity and ostenta- 
tion. Yet he was ever practical, emphasized the useful, 
and seemed at times almost to identify the good and the 
useful. 

The Cynics.—It was this uncertainty concerning the 
content of the good which led one group of his followers 
to conclude that the good is pleasure, while the Cynics, 

143 


144 Goodness and Freedom 


taking the clue directly from the life of Socrates, found 
the central principle in the sterner side of Socrates’ teach- 
ing. Antisthenes (440-323), who founded the Cynic school, 
taught in the gymnasium of Kynosarges, a kind of sol- 
dier’s field in Athens, hence the name Cynic. Diogenes 
of this school speaks of himself as one of the dogs, and 
others were said to lead a sort of animal existence, wan- 
dering and begging, jeering at the refinements of life, 
snarling at society, as critics do who react against pleasures. 

The Simple Life—Like Aristippus, Antisthenes was 
skeptical about the knowledge of other peoples’ mental 
states, and so he sought; not universal good, but the good 
of the individual, which is to be found in freedom or self- 
sufficiency. He declared that virtue is sufficient for happi- 
ness, and all that it requires is the Socratic vigor. Hence 
he rejected the claims of society on man, heralded a return 
to nature as an escape from bondage, reacted against the 
pleasures of the senses, even looking upon pleasure as 
an evil to be shunned by the wise man. This view in- 
volved a reaction against custom, with emphasis on nature 
as the clue for the individual to follow. A blanket, for 
instance, 1s as good as a dress, and a house is scarcely 
needed. Since wants and needs are to be reduced, one 
should not be in bondage to home, friends, town, state, 
country, or property: rich and poor are alike men, the slave 
is as good as his master. Luxuries are to be discarded. A 
temple is no more sacred than any other place. There is 
no higher or lower. 

Whatever may be said about the narrowness of this view, 
it implies one of the great typical attitudes found in human 
history as a whole. It stands for freedom of thought as 
well as freedom of life, has the beginnings of humanitari- 
anism, and is akin to asceticism, to the severer type of 
ethical thought wherever found. The Cynics have been 
called the first monks in the Western world. They econ- 
tributed the ideal of perfect self-control, sublime inde- 
pendence of circumstances; excellence of character attain- 
able through the life of reason or wisdom, which is essen- 
tially passionless, indifferent to the claims of sensibility, 


Stoicism and Self-Sacrifice 145 


emancipated from the demands of external life, with wants 
reduced to the minimum, and self-denial as the direct clue 
to goodness. This clue may seem as short-sighted as pleas- 
ure, and as likely to run into pessimism. The “‘return 
to nature’’ involved too great a reaction against society, 
to the neglect of what was good in custom and in national 
life in general. Such an extreme reaction is destined to be 
short-lived. Yet virtue confessedly demands a measure of 
discipline or self-control. The life of reason is a more 
direct clue than the expression of desires. The Cynics made 
a permanent contribution to the idea of the good and the 
true method of its pursuit. 

Stoicism.—What was profoundest or best in Cynicism 
found more persuasive expression in Stoicism, a very im- 
portant ethical system, which passed through two extensive 
periods, Greek and Roman, the Greek period beginning 
with Zeno the Stoic, and the Roman extending from 
150 B.c. to A.D. 200. It is interesting to note that the 
founder, Zeno, was not a Greek, but a Hellenist from a 
Greek colony on the Isle of Cyprus, and probably a Semite, 
hence of more religious stock. Going to Athens and learn- 
ing of the various schools of philosophy, Zeno studied first 
under Crates, the Cynic, and Stilpo, the Megarian. From 
the latter he acquired a typical emphasis on the abstract 
Good as the ideal principle. By his earnestness, moral 
strictness, the simplicity of his life, and the dignity and 
affability of his conduct, he won universal respect; and by 
the unusual moderation of his life he reached an advanced 
age untouched by disease. 

With Zeno the doctrine of independence which he ac- 
quired from the Cynics ceased to be a revolt against society 
and became positive belief in the worth of man as a rational 
being, while the Megarian principle showed him that rea- 
son, which makes man a true individual or independent 
self, is also the universal principle of a life in common 
with the rational order of being. For him ethics was of 
supreme importance. Its basis was found in an identifi- 
cation of the universe with the reason or Logos which is 
also discovered in the heart of our own nature. 


146 Goodness and Freedom 


The Rational Standard.—The wise man’s ideal is a life 
of conformity within and without to this universal or cos- 
mic Reason, the wise man lives in the world of sensibilities 
or appearances by passing beyond it in his fidelity to rea- 
son.t There is in the universe itself a norm or law which 
becomes for all men the guide to rightness of conduct. True 
thought reveals what ought to be, discloses the purpose in 
things; hence makes clear our responsibility, our duty, 
which is to be realized through obedience to the moral law 
or principle of the cosmos. Duty, which receives its first 
elear enunciation in Stoic terms, and is one of the great 
contributions of this school, is regarded as a law to which 
man is to be subject in contrast with sensuous inclination 
in all forms. The ruling part of our nature is reason, 
espoused with such vigor by the Stoies that with them dedi- 
cation to it becomes the religion of consecration to duty. 
The Stoic was deeply reverential, for he found the divine 
in all things, and every house was to him a temple. Where 
the Cynics had emphasized separateness and had leveled 
customary and even religious distinctions, the Stoics put 
stress on oneness with both things and persons, and systems 
of beliefs; and to them the various names for diety signi- 
fied so many approaches to the one Providence or Reason 
of the world, the inner Power discerned by the life of 
reason. 

Divine Law.—Reverence for man and everything per- 
taining to him at its best naturally followed. This atti- 
tude implied respect for human rights, hence in its Roman 
form Stoicism had great influence in developing the idea 
of law, regarded in its civic as well as in its moral aspects. 
This organization of thought and life in terms of law is 
indeed the gist of Stoicism as a constructive faith. The 
one law, seen as reason, order, system, in the universe, was 
regarded ethically as justice, the divine law which yielded 
the principle for man’s conduct in relation to his fellows, 
man’s duty being to make of himself an embodiment of 
this law: life in accordance with nature is life in accord- 


1W. Windelband, History of Philosophy, tr. by Tufts, 2d ed., p. 163. 


Stoicism and Self-Sacrifice 147 


ance with this law, and for the Stoic human and physical 
law were one. Hence the wise man puts aside his own 
will, that is, any emotion or caprice which may rise in con- 
trast or antagonism, and he accepts the universal will or 
reason. 

Independence.—It is in this harmony with the rational 
nature of things that freedom is to be found. So far as 
wrong-doing or sin may exist in the world, it implies life 
contrary to the world-reason or law. The man who is thus 
out of adjustment with the nature of things is so far sep- 
arate, 1s asserting the part over against the whole; and 
the point of view of the whole is the corrective of this mal- 
adjustment. Man’s separateness is merely apparent and 
temporary. It is the whole that is real. Asa part of this 
whole man has no real freedom, in the sense in which 
Christians came later to believe in the freedom of the will. 
Yet although freedom in the latter sense is in Stoic terms 
an illusion, there is every reason for urging rational adjust- 
ment upon the individual. Indeed, the Stoics have been 
called the first great moral forces of the world. Just how 
this appeal to the individual is to be justified, as if the 
individual were free, is not made clear. Professor Palmer 
calls this one of ‘‘the superb paradoxes’’ of Stoicism. With 
them the appeal to righteousness was exceedingly strong. 

Equanimity.—Despite the element of fatalism in their 
faith, the Stoics put stress on harmony with nature as at- 
tainable. It is within man’s power, they reasoned, to over- 
come the emotions, passions, excitements, and other adverse 
mental states implying excess, and by conquering these to 
attain equanimity, freedom from circumstance through ab- 
stention from any activity which would break in upon this 
inward repose or serenity which is yielded by true knowl- 
edge of the nature of things. Hence the many wise pre- 
cepts which have come down to us from Stoic times, and 
have made Stoicism a classic contribution to the eternal 
wisdom of life. It has been said that Stoicism has never 
gone from the world and probably never will go: it is 
deeply rooted in human nature, and the Stoic is almost the 
type of the philosopher, incapable of being disturbed by 


148 Goodness and Freedom 


the events of the world, the representative of an ideal atti- 
tude toward life. 

Self-consistency.— Whatever the inconsistencies of this 
faith, the central interest, as Caird has shown, is to give 
unity to man’s life, a unity into which nothing can come 
from without to disturb.2 The self-seeking impulse, as it 
becomes self-conscious, must recognize its own universal 
character; the impulse of a rational being as such is not 
to seek the gratification of his particular impulses but to 
seek to satisfy the self. There is no hostile element in the 
cosmos to limit self-realization: the world is one world, 
and the idea of escaping from the unity on which its exist- 
ence rests is futile. There is no real separation between 
reason and the will: the same soul thinks and wills, per- 
ceives and desires. Man’s passions are indeed irrational, 
but this unreason does not imply the existence in the uni- 
verse of a principle indifferent to reason or directly op- 
posed to it: passion is the division of one, that is, one indi- 
vidual, nature against itself, not a separation in nature as 
universal. Every man tends to realize his nature as a ra- 
tional being. Hence the good for the Stoic is the realiza- 
tion of the self as a whole rather than the realization of a 
phase or special desire, and so Stoicism corrects hedonism 
by its critique of desire as particular in contrast with the 
good as universal. The principle of order, unity, or self- 
consistency which we carry with us is that which makes us 
selves or moral beings. The idea of the systematic order- 
ing of the whole nature of man is to be found by each of 
us through philosophic reaction on the world. 

Whether this ideal, carried out in practice, means, as 
Caird holds, that the particular deed is so subordinated 
that the wise man becomes ‘‘a mere bundle of negations,”’ 
with nothing left except ‘‘the formal self-consistency of a 
will of which nothing can be said,’”? save that it is at one 
with itself, will depend upon one’s interpretation of the 
life of reason. While Palmer emphasizes the religious de- 


2E. Caird, Evolution of Theology in Greek Philosophy, Vol. IT, 
p. 82. 
3 Ibid., Dirdods 


Storicism and Self-Sacrtfice 149 


votion of the Stoics to duty, their emphasis on organiza- 
tion in terms of law; Caird points to the great work done 
by the Stoics negatively, to wit, by lifting moral and re- 
ligious ideas out of their national setting, by completing 
the work of Socrates in emancipating the individual from 
tradition and throwing him back on himself: every man, 
from lowest to highest, was shown to be a law unto himself, 
with the same universal right, the same universal duty. 
Roman Stoicism.—Panetius (born about 180, B.c.), 
who led the Stoic school in Athens prior to 110 B.c. was 
the chief founder of Roman Stocism. He was mainly in- 
terested in the teaching on its practical side, and so he 
sought to make Stoicism more attractive, to rid it of second- 
ary teachings to which objections had been raised. His 
work on Duty formed the basis of Cicero’s De Officits. 
With Seneca (A.D. 4-65), Stoicism becomes more explicitly 
a philosophy of deliverance or redemption. Epictetus, 
who lived at the time of Domitian, taught that philosophy 
makes explicit the universal moral principles which are 
innate in all men: man can become free and happy by 
restricting his life to his moral nature, by bearing all 
external events with unconditional submission, renouncing 
all appetites and wishes directed toward external things. 
Hence the importance of discriminating between what is 
in our power and what is not in our power: only our will 
is In our power, for example, in adjustment to the unavoid- 
able, in keeping one’s self cheerful, in checking desire. 
Marcus Aurelius.—In the teaching of Marcus Aurelius, 
Roman Stoicism reaches its great height as a well-rounded 
doctrine of practical life implying a universal attitude. 
Marcus Aurelius had the advantage of knowing many 
Stoics, with opportunity for seizing upon what to him was 
best in the life and thought of each. His first effort was 
to live by what he came thus to accept, then to write about 
it in his meditations; hence he is in many respects the ideal 
ethical teacher. His teaching expresses a surpassing peace 
of mind or beauty of spirit. Greatly conscious of his de- 
pendence on those who have given him the various elements 
of his faith, he realizes that it is through what has come 


150 Goodness and Freedom 


to him from nature, gods, and men that he is made free. 
He is content with the part assigned to him. Amidst the 
changes which time discloses he sees the immutable law, 
hence the duty which becomes to him a religion. Reverence 
for and trust in the ruling power or providence of the uni- 
verse is the ruling sentiment through which, passing beyond 
the pantheism of earlier forms of Stoicism, he approximates 
Christian theism. This attitude of adjustment involves 
(1) acquiescence in the present condition; (2) checking 
bodily persuasions; (3) freedom from error and deception, 
with emphasis on looking within, where the source of what 
is good and what is ill is to be found. 

Reason as Arbiter—Study of Cynicism and Stoicism 
readily leads to the conclusion that it is reason that eriti- 
cizes, organizes; hence discloses a conception of law and 
duty. Through reason we compare the results of various 
activities, noting the relationship, for instance, between 
eating a moderate amount of food and sensuous appetite, 
the value of intellectual pleasures, the wear and tear and 
exhaustion in many forms of social life, and thus the im- 
portance of a scale of values. Reason is not independent 
of experience, but formulates in terms of ends the activi- 
ties which otherwise remain mere desires, incentives, or 
pleasures; it supplies the form, while sensibility contrib- 
utes the content. The knowledge it gives reveals the power 
required to attain self-mastery and tranquillity, which in 
turn becomes the basis for further regulation of the desires 
and emotions. Stoic knowledge is power, especially its 
teaching concerning the integrity or consistency of our 
rational selfhood as a principle of unity. Such knowledge 
involves increasing discovery of our powers and their 
mutual adjustment. In this process reason is not disclosed 
as an end in itself, in itself it is not completely ethical. 

Rationalism, taken in entire seriousness, would eall for 
the closest scrutiny of every incentive in our nature, lest 
the desires and emotions win ascendency; and to adopt the 
moral rigorism of extreme rationalists would be to attempt 
to exclude our sensibility altogether from participation in 
moral conduct, It is is not strange that partisans of hedon- 


Stoicism and Self-Sacrifice 151 


ism have risen in renewed protest throughout history. Even 
in the case of more liberal forms of rationalism, assimilat- 
ing in part the wisdom of Plato and Aristotle, the element 
of careful discrimination has been so emphasized that 
critics have discounted such a view as a highly refined 
scheme for self-culture. The limitations of this view have 
been frequently made manifest by contrast with the Chris- 
tian ideal, the Greek virtues have been disparaged as 
‘‘splendid vices,’’ in opposition to which the Christian 
standard of self-denial has been brought forward as the 
very essence of virtue. The Christian standard has there- 
fore been offered as an alternative form of rationalism, as 
the view indeed which develops the asceticism of the 
Cynics to the full. Self-denial rather than Stoic self-con- 
trol appears then to be the complete corrective of the one- 
sidedness of prior theories of the good. This view has the 
support of the Christian system as a whole, and so it seems 
to have the advantage over the teaching of an individual, 
such as Marcus Aurelius. 

self-sacrifice.—It has been customary to assume that 
Christianity and self-sacrifice are identical, and to accept 
self-sacrifice as good without criticism. Recent instances 
are cited every now and then in the press in confirmation 
of the standard so long assumed as supreme. The impli- 
cation is that the man who gives up all, is an exemplification 
of the ideal which we should realize. Self-sacrifice has been 
advocated unqualifiedly, despite the fact that men and 
women of a certain type tend to yield over-much, while 
the majority dedicate too little of themselves and their 
possessions. It is universally celebrated in fiction, the 
drama, and more recently in the film-play. It is praised 
from the pulpit by some who do not practice it. Self- 
sacrifice seems to be incumbent upon us because Jesus is 
said to have set the example once for all for Christians of 
all types. This tacit adoption of a moral pattern, without 
reference to the virtues which should sustain self-sacrifice, 
is not likely to be inquired into till we examine the doctrine 
of sacrificial atonement, to see if we have really understood. 
If it should turn out that Christian theology is too nega- 


152 Goodness and Freedom 


tive at this point, there would doubtless be fresh study of 
Christian morals as a whole. Again, praise of self-sacri- 
fice has kept pace with glorification of war; and until an- 
other attitude toward war has become well established, 
with new estimates of the martial virtues, the assumption 
that men should sacrifice themselves will continue to be 
made. 

Asceticism.—Most Christians would now object that 
the asceticism of the early ages of our era was not repre- 
sentative of Christianity. Jesus did not by word or ex- 
ample ineuleate the narrowly ascetic ideal. The mortifica- 
tion of the flesh seems remote indeed from the spirit of 
the Gospel, with its sanction of the natural joys of life.* 
The man who mortifies the flesh may in reality be seeking 
individual salvation. The practice of self-denial through 
renunciation of the world does not carry far, and we are 
today decidedly skeptical concerning ascetic practices. 
wherever found in the world. Both in India and in Europe 
we have seen to what results asceticism leads, and in this 
instance we judge almost wholly by the consequences, how- 
ever high the motives may be. We have learned too that 
the sharp dualism of flesh and spirit which led to the dis- 
paragement of the body, was of alien origin. The usual 
judgment on asceticism is not that it only emphasizes one 
aspect of Christianity but makes the negative aspect of mor- 
ality final.’ If the monasteries were a refuge for the mystic, 
the pious recluse, and the disappointed, they in any event 
made no real provision for the ordinary life of humanity. 
Nowadays we know deeper reasons why the suppression of 
fleshly desires led to inner conflict, hence to sensuous reac- 
tions. Any view involving practices which distort human 
nature is so far beyond the pale of reason. It is ‘‘dishonor, 
not honor, to the moral life to conceive it as mere negative 
subjection of the flesh, mere holding under control, the lust 
of desire and the temptations of appetite. All positive 
content, all liberal achievement, is cut out and morality 
is reduced to the mere struggle against solicitations to 


4Cf. Seth, op. cit., p. 161. 
5 Cf. Muirhead, op. ctt., p. 119. 


Stoicism and Self-Sacrifice 153 


sin.’’® So too the moral ideal is made exceedingly narrow 
in scope if confined to the virtues of chastity, poverty, and 
obedience; if life is judged to be a mere pilgrimage towards 
the goal of a future state of bliss. Nowadays we insist on 
social service as a test of sanity in moral matters. 

Self-denial.— Nevertheless, the Gospel was taught with 
great rigor, as the demand for that righteousness of heart 
which was to exceed conventional morality. It was to involve 
walking through the narrow gate and along the straight 
highway of the life of self-denial. As lived out by the first 
followers, this ideal almost immediately involved persecu- 
tion and suffering, if not martyrdom. The conviction has 
persisted that in such consecration is true spirituality. 
Only through the death of the natural man shall the spir- 
itual self be born. This seems to call for utter self-sacri- 
fice, and the implied ideal survived the ascetic practices by 
which the ideal was formerly sustained. Christianity has 
kept self-denial as a pattern, and new expressions of it 
have appeared from time to time, notably in the case of 
the Salvation Army, whose members often deny themselves 
even the necessities of life. The modern devotee of self- 
sacrifice also finds a field in home and foreign missions, in 
various forms of philanthropy, in times of great calamities, 
and especially in war-time, when the doctrine is preached 
with new vigor. 

Self-sacrifice is not to be identified with any age or with 
any theological system, although it has gained a stronger 
hold in Oriental lands, notably in India, and it might be 
called an Oriental ideal, one which we would never have 
developed independently in the Western world. Its origin 
is also partly due to the tendency to identify the self with 
certain of its elements, especially the emotions of pity, 
sympathy, compassion; hence all impulses are disparaged 
which lead either toward pleasure or toward the intellectual 
life. Since all vice is selfishness, the evil must be attacked 
at its roots: the self must be denied, chastened, and there 
must be no listening to incentives toward rounded self- 
development. All goodness is assigned to some outside 

6 Dewey and Tufts, Ethics, p. 366, 


154 Goodness and Freedom 


source, while all that is evil is attributed to the corrupted 
self. Promptings toward benevolence do indeed exist, but 
the self deserves no credit for these, and of itself would 
tend toward hell. Vice is easy, virtue extremely difficult. 
Hence the need of utmost vigilance and resistance. Self- 
denial is not a standard to be reasoned out because it best 
sustains itself in a comparative study of the virtues: it is 
tc be accepted, doubts are to be suppressed, and sacrificial 
service is to be the actual rule in daily life. 

Uncertainties of Self-sacrifice—Popular belief in self- 
sacrifice has been sustained to some extent by appeal to the 
fact of widespread struggle in the animal world, on the 
assumption that sacrifice and struggle belong together. 
The human family is said to be founded on self-sacrifice, 
and the mother is always regarded as the ideal example. So 
strong is the conviction that self-sacrifice is the true ideal 
that the son or daughter, in turn, is expected to make an 
equivalent sacrifice for the parent. Thus the talented 
young woman, who has attended college and is competent 
to teach school and become a progressively useful member 
of the community, must give up her career, devote all her 
time to the widowed mother in the home. The mother, who 
has perhaps retired from active life far too soon, demands 
her daughter’s time, whether or not the sacrifice is worthy: 
because it is a sacrifice it is assumed to be worthy. Again, 
it is the young man who must support both father and 
mother, whatever his talents may be. Nobody is supposed 
to ask whether the greater good to society is being attained, 
or whether there is perchance some other way. It is under- 
stood that the call to personal duty stands first, although 
sometimes the young person is sacrificed to sustain the 
selfishness of a parent who should be in active service in 
the world. 

The difficulty is that one is unable to deduce the prin- 
ciple from particular cases, to show that the greater good 
has been achieved. The one who foregoes a career, makes 
the decision without assurance that the one for whom he 
is giving up so much will be truly benefited. In many 
instances there is not time to consider alternatives or weigh 


Stoicism and Self-Sacrifice 155 


consequences. For example, take the case of the youth 
from the slums, of slight promise, who falls overboard and 
who would be drowned were it not for the sudden deed of 
the young man of splendid parts and fine training, of the 
greatest promise, who impulsively throws himself into the 
water, is drowned, but saves the young fellow whom society 
must educate, with doubtful results. If the would-be res- 
cuer hesitates, is he selfish? If he refuses to risk his life 
when there is every probability that he will be drowned, 
is his character weakened? Shall the public official, 
greatly needed, take the same risks as any other? Is it 
right even for the President to run great risks that he may 
visit the distant territory of Alaska, in addition to his 
manifold duties at the White House? Where shall we 
draw the line, as we descend the scale from greater to lesser 
public officials and people who are needed by the state? 
In endeavoring to answer these questions, it is well to bear 
in mind the fact that in the Christian world we have per- 
mitted multitudes of people to become dependent, while 
uncritically praising the philanthropic virtues. It has 
been customary till very recently to anticipate a declining 
old age, following upon early retirement from active life, 
with the expectation that the young ought to take care of 
the aged. Self-sacrifice has indeed been eulogized by 
reasoning in a circle, to the neglect of the fact that in 
actual life it abounds in uncertainties. 

self-sacrifice as Instrumental.—Self-sacrifice has been 
ealled a glorious madness.7. Oftentimes the uncertainties 
are so great that it seems merely impulsive, and if advice 
were asked we would counsel against it. We try to justify 
it on the ground that sacrifice is a law of life, so in our 
uncertainty we question whether we could make headway 
without it. Every great advance has involved sacrifice. 
It has abounded in the lives of those we praise. Through 
it salvation has come into the world. Vicaricus sacrifice 
seems essential to our spiritual welfare. It appears to 
follow that sacrifice is universal good. Yet when we try 
to elicit from believers in it the best reasons they can give, 


7 Cf, Palmer, The Nature of Goodness, p. 158. 


156 Goodness and Freedom 


self-sacrifice turns out to be a negative term. Even as in- 
strumental, sacrifice is praised for what is given up, more 
than for what is attained. The hero is the one who died. 
Death seems then to be a good. It is glorious to suffer 
and to die; hence those things which yield opportunities 
for heroism are noble. We are not in the habit of con- 
sidering whether some other means to virtue might have 
been found. 

Devotion. Granted that self-sacrifice is at least a 
good, that it has often been instrumental in the past, what 
we now need is a term to express the positive values which 
may still be regarded as worthy. As long as negative 
terminology is used, people will justify their moral ideal 
and conduct by uncritical appeal to self-sacrifice. It is 
not what is given up, not suffering as such, not death that 
avails. Life is positive. Love is positive. It is the full- 
ness of life that we want, and it is possible that we have 
misapprehended Christianity from first to last in so far 
as we have taken it to be a gospel of sacrifice. 

The way of the cross was not the full way of life as 
Jesus lived and taught it. His life abounded in works all 
along the way. His power was positive. His attitude was 
strong. From the deeds done and the words uttered, words 
which were spirit and were life, virtue went forth. This 
was supremely true of the culminating events of the Gos- 
pel history. The ideal of the fullness of life is, in brief, 
devotion, dedication to a purpose: the things given up, 
the sufferings involved are secondary to the end in view, 
and are to be understood in connection with other instru- 
mental matters. It is not he who loses his life alone, who 
takes up his cross and follows, who is assured of the goal 
in view; but he who by his love toward God and the neigh- 
bor consecrates himself to his purpose with such earnest- 
ness that he is willing to meet the conditions, whatever 
they may be. It is this full dedication of the self which 
opens the soul to power. Complete consecration is never 
attained by ‘‘the negative way.”’ 

The more ethically thoughtful and morally consecrated 
of Jesus’ followers have realized that no atoning sacrifice 


Stoicism and Self-Sacrifice 157 


could relieve them of the responsibility of ‘‘living the 
life.’’ The ideal life discloses the way to follow: it does 
not take from us the necessity of coming to judgment, 
learning the moral lesson of the social situation we are in, 
reacting against our own past, and treading the road 
toward our own better future. Not until we give up once 
for all the notion that some one has done our work for us 
are we in a position to see what our real work is, and 
whatever our work may be the true method of doing it can 
never be found by imitating the negative phases of the 
life which has set us the example. From first to last it is 
what is done that avails. Moreover, salvation ceases to be 
the end in view when one espouses a moral ideal, substi- 
tuting positive terms, becoming devoted to a purpose with 
determination to achieve it, where once there seemed to be 
no reason for making effort. And if one is most likely to 
serve by dedication to a purpose calling for the use of 
one’s higher powers to the full, there is every reason for 
knowledge and realization of the self, where once there 
was neglect, weakness, one-sidedness due to notions of self- 
sacrifice. 

Limitations of Self-sacrifice—W hatever the arguments 
against self-sacrifice—that it is impossible, a sign of 
degradation, needless, irrational, and that the failures of 
Christianity are due to the weaker virtues allied with it ® 
—the significant fact is that we continue to believe in what 
it stands for. We can not rationally make it the end of 
life. We can not indulge in self-sacrifice for its own sake 
and be assured of virtue. But we must admit that the 
moral life involves struggle, that sometimes the sacrifice 
of the individual has been needed for the good of the whole, 
and that consecration to a moral purpose inevitably in- 
volves giving up lesser values for greater. What we are 
constrained to keep in all this wealth of experience imply- 
ing self-sacrifice in human history is the moral dynamic, 
or moving power of the life dedicated to the highest pur- 
pose. The terms devotion, consecration to duty, service, 
express for us in our modern way of looking at things 


8 See Palmer, op. cit., Chap. VI. 


158 Goodness and Freedom 


those constructive values which have survived the long 
ages of controversy over ideals of discipline, asceticism, 
self-denial, heroism, the martial virtues. We have come 
to see that there should not be too much calculation, to the 
neglect of the impulses which prompt to deeds of self- 
sacrifice; but that far more depends on the goal in view 
than on the mere prompting to pity or sympathy. Hence 
we grant the privileges of extended preparation for a life 
of service in the world. We expect every one to partici- 
pate as he can serve best. And with due caution we should 
be able to preserve the values of the ideal of self-sacrifice 
without permitting these to take expression in negative 
forms. 

Meanwhile, it is to be observed that a few exceptional 
people tend to give of themselves, their time, their posses- 
sions to the full; while the majority give too little, hence 
that there is need of reconsideration of the question of 
self-sacrifice with reference to our increasing knowledge of 
human types. Leaders in public welfare have sometimes 
been so absorbed in their work that watchful friends have 
been needed to see that these consecrated souls had suffi- 
cient rest, enough to eat, and money in their purses. Self- 
sacrifice has been advocated, because so few manifest it. 
But the sacrifice has been accepted because the few were 
willing to make it. The man or woman, especially the 
woman, who is strongly inclined toward self-sacrifice need 
never be encouraged to adopt self-sacrifice as a good, 
but needs rather to be held back, in behalf of the best 
service that can be rendered during the passage of the 
years. We who look on, conscientiously, are not minded 
to go out and imitate these exceptional people in their 
self-sacrifice, but to give what we can give best, so that 
the leaders shall no longer need to give more than their 
share. One can not then accept the argument that the 
extreme self-sacrifice of the few is needed to offset the 
extreme self-assertion of the many. It is a sad fact indeed 
that in philanthropic organizations the major part of the 
work is done by two or three leaders. It is a fact, too, 
that vampires and parasites abound in the world, also 


Stoicism and Self-Sacrifice 159 


ungrateful adults, and forgetful children. The world is 
eold and unmindful, and will let the few sacrifice them- 
selves for the many. But the inference to be drawn from 
this is that there should be more knowledge, not only of 
the way others live, but of the way the few have lived 
who have done the nobler share of the world’s work. 

Then there is always the question of the other’s good. In 
general we conclude that what is right for one to receive 
is right for another to give, and that with ethical readjust- 
ment there will be no place for extreme self-sacrifice. It 
has been frequently noted that extremes beget extremes in 
self-sacrifice. The mother who gives too much to her chil- 
dren may in turn exact too much, may condemn her 
children because they do not devote themselves to her i 
her way, instead of granting them the privilege of living 
the devoted life in their way. Self-sacrifice has ceased to 
be a virtue when made so emphatic. The positive values 
come into view once more in the lives of people so given 
over to their work that no one thinks of their conduct as 
involving sacrifice. It is the life within and behind then, 
that signifies, that gives the moral quality. 


REFERENCES 


Mackenziz, J. 8., Manual of Ethics, Bk. II, Chap. IT. 

SETH, J., Ethical Principles, Part I, Chap. II. 

DEWEY AND Turts, Ethics, Chaps. XVI, XVII. 

MourrHeaD, J. H., Hlements of Ethics, Bk. III, Chap. II (bibli- 
ography of moral theories, p. 237). 

Patmer, G. H., The Nature of Goodness, 1903, Chap. VI. 

Ten Broexke, J., The Moral Life and Religion, 1922, Chap. VI. 

Bravtey, F. H., Hthical Studies, 1876, Chap. VI. 

RASHpDALL, H., The Theory of Good and Evil, Vol. II, Chap. III. 


CHAPTER XI 
FORMALISM AND INTUITION 


The Good Will—The tendency of thought toward em- 
phasis on the universal principle rather than the particu- 
lar deed, to which the Stoics made permanent contribu- 
tions, reached its culmination in the ethical system of Im- 
manuel Kant, notable for its doctrine of the Categorical 
Imperative. Kant defines morality without regard to any 
of the consequences or ends of action. For him the only 
thing which can ‘‘possibly be conceived, in the world or 
out of it, which can be called good without qualification’’ 
is the Good Will. Intelligence, wit, judgment, resolution, 
perseverance, and other talents might, he thinks, be re- 
garded as good and desirable in right connections. But 
these qualities might be extremely bad and mischievous 
‘af the will which is to make use of them and which, there- 
fore, constitutes what is called character, is not good. 
Even power, riches, honor, health might inspire pride and 
presumption if there were not a good will to correct their 
influence. So, too, moderation of the affections and pas- 
sions, self-control and calm deliberation may be essential 
to the intrinsic worth of a person. But not one of the 
above qualities is good in itself.1 The will is good, not 
because it wills something good, but because through un- 
questioning obedience to the moral law, prescribed for it 
by the practical reason, it is good without reference to 
what is done. Even if no results should follow, or if the 
will should lack all power of accomplishment, the will 
would still be good. In contrast, no act wrought by means 
of inclination or desire is morally good. A moral deed is 
a deed wrought, not alone as duty requires, but because 
duty requires it. If duty and inclination happened to 


1 Theory of Hthics, tr. by Abbott, p. 9. 
160 


Formalism and Intuition 161 


point to the same end, we would not know that our act 
was morally good; since we could not be sure that the deed 
was wrought through reverence for the law rather than 
through inclination. Never has the good will received such 
emphasis. 

Kant’s Aim.—To see the force of this argument, it is 
important to understand Kant’s purpose in what to some 
has seemed to be an exceedingly narrow doctrine. Kant 
does not set out to prove that morality exists. He is not 
in search of a preceptive system. He does not even under- 
take theoretically to prove that the will is free, that a 
moral self exists, or that there is a future life, a divine 
Being: these are postulates of our thinking in the moral 
sphere. There is a vast region in the practical world with 
which he has no concern. But granted all that morality 
is ordinarily supposed to imply, the question is, How is 
morality possible? What are the pure principles or ele- 
ments, in contrast with the empirical elements? Is there 
a central imperative of morality, and if so, how is it pos- 
sible? In the answer to this question the matter of moral 
experience is not involved, but the form or general prin- 
ciple. That there are various goods, is not to be questioned. 
That men act from a sense of duty, out of respect for the 
moral law, Kant by no means doubts. It is not for him 
to guarantee that men will be able to carry out his rigorous 
moral teaching. Kant is quite willing to admit the frailty 
of human nature. He carefully qualifies his statements 
concerning the will, and confesses that much that he puts 
forward is still mainly an ideal. But that men ought to 
will and act out of pure respect for the law, he is firmly 
convinced. He proposes then to inquire into the ground 
of the highest ideal. Hence, he is concerned to abstract 
all empirical elements by considering what is good in and 
for itself, without regard to results. Thus Kant succeeds 
as no one else has succeeded in directing attention to the 
law of morality as the ultimate principle. Experience 
does not tell what is universal or necessary: it is reason 
that makes known the universal. Here alone is the uncon- 
ditional to be found, the categorical rather than the hypo- 


162 Goodness and Freedom 


thetical. Above all, here is the ground of duty, the uni- 
versally valid moral command, in contrast with rules of 
skill or mere counsels and inclinations. Here, too, is moral 
consistency, the basis of the kingdom of moral ends. 

Moral Reason.—Kant defines ethics therefore as the 
science of the laws of freedom, the universal laws given to 
man as a rational being.2. This is the reason for being 
concerned with the idea of a possible pure will, not the 
will in its admixture. It is not possible to begin by de- 
fining duties. The term ‘‘will’’? means something different 
from will used in the ordinary psychological sense: it is 
superior to all inclination, governed by reason, the con- 
dition of all other goods. The will is included in the notion 
of duty, it is the seat of practical love; it is objectively 
determined by law, subjectively determined by pure re- 
spect; and it is the form of all volition. In other words, 
it chooses only that which reason, independent of inclina- 
tion, recognizes as practically necessary. It is universally 
legislative, autonomous, self-consistent; and is to be re- 
garded as an end in itself because, primarily, it is the law- 
giver, because it 7s universal moral reason. ‘To see it, to 
grasp it is to see that there is no alternative, that reason 
is absolute in its own sphere; hence, that there is no need 
to penetrate farther back. 

The Categorical Imperative——To understand Kant’s 
central principle then it is essential for the time being to 
make the utmost abstraction, as if it were not a question 
of moral experience at all; and yet presently to realize that 
the universal principle thus brought sharply into view is 
the ground of all moral experience. By instinct, through 
his inclinations and sensibilities, man would tend to ex- 
press himself as do the animals, and so man would seek 
pleasure. But in his higher selfhood man gives to himself 
the law of reason, above all other laws of his being. Hence, 
this demand of moral reason is a categorical imperative, 
an absolute or unconditional command. A. hypothetical 
action would be good as a means to something else. In 
the case then of ordinary imperatives we would say, ‘‘Do 

2See Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals, trans. 


Formalism and Intuition 163 


this 2f you would achieve that,’’ namely, the end which 
you have in view. But the moral law commands, ‘‘Thou 
shalt.’’ Its imperative is not directed towards any par- 
ticular end, but is the basis of moral conduct when we are 
engaged in attaining particular ends. It is this inner 
form of moral deeds which constitutes the principle which 
needs no demonstration but is itself the basis of all demon- 
strations. Furthermore, man as a moral being is an end 
in himself, and moral beings belong together in a kingdom 
of ends. Hence, man is bidden always to act so as to fulfill 
this, his moral nature, never using his reason as a means 
of attaining non-rational ends. The imperative, therefore, 
is, ‘‘Act only on that maxim whereby thou canst at the 
same time will that it shall become a universal law.’’? 
The whole standard is thus summarized: ‘‘So act as to 
regard humanity, whether in thine own person or in that 
of another, always as an end, never as a means.’’ This, 
says Kant, is the sole condition under which a will can 
never contradict itself. One ought so to choose that the 
same volition shall comprehend the maxims of one’s choice 
as a universal law.* In thus choosing maxims or rules of 
conduct which belong together according to a single prin- 
ciple, each one of us is employing his moral nature as any 
man thus fundamentally would act; and in so stating the 
principle which is a law for all one is referring to all men 
as no less truly ends in themselves. What applies to the 
moral person applies to the kingdom of ends. Thus the 
categorical act has multiform significance. Although the 
same laws are implied in the action of the numerous moral 
agents, the maxims of those agents may be very different. 
The maxim shows how the agent chooses to act, and here 
there is room for liberty of action. But the principle of 
duty is commanded by reason absolutely; hence in this 
regard there is no alternative or variation from person to 
person. 

If it be objected that moral reason as thus conceived is 
purely formal, Kant would be willing to admit it; but this 


3 Abbott’s trans., p. 47. 
4Ibid., p. 72. 


164 Goodness and Freedom 


principle is necessary in order to establish the universal 
basis of morals. To consider specific deeds to be wrought 
would be to turn to the realm of experience, which involves 
change. The moral test must underlie all particular cases 
by considering whether in the various deeds one is un- 
qualifiedly ready to will that the motive shall become a 
permanent or regular law in the moral constitution of 
things. Thus, one would escape from the limitations of 
desire and emotion, testing conduct to the full by asking 
whether one would will that all others shall be committed 
to the typical principle in question. The welfare of others 
would then count no less emphatically than one’s own well- 
being. In fact, the categorical imperative is a more ex- 
plicit formulation of the Golden Rule. 

Rational Freedom.—There is then no liberty to will 
anything one likes, on the assumption that as no specific 
action is commanded by the law one deed may as well be 
chosen as another. For although man’s will is autonomous, 
as a law-giver he is sovereign, hence he is not subject to 
the will of any other man: this is man in the universal 
sense. Man possesses the power to carry out what moral 
reason decrees, humanity is ‘‘capable’’ of morality, and 
this was what Kant proposed to show. Man is in brief, a 
rational being possessing an efficient will, and if reason 
completely determined the will moral conduct would be 
perfect. It is because man is in a measure imperfect that 
there is reason for obligation. The command of reason 
being unconditional, the will has no liberty to choose the 
opposite, and this is why it was necessary for the time 
being to throw all particular deeds out of account, realiz- 
ing with utter fidelity the truth that duty is a law for all. 
human beings. 

Estimate of Kant’s Ethics.—The whole history of ethics 
since Kant’s day discloses his profound influence. To some 
his doctrine has seemed so rigorous indeed that the higher 
and lower principles of our nature appear to be completely 
separated. Psychology does not confirm this rigid dis- 
tinction between will and reason, and the desires and sén- 
sibilities which constitute the irrational. Ethics does not 


Formalism and Intuition 165 


require this sharp division. The problem of morals is not 
to eliminate but to enlist the lower principle. Kant’s 
formalism appears to exclude even happiness; overlooks 
the incentives, spontaneities, and sentiments which con- 
tribute both the content and the opportunities of the moral 
life. His principle resolves itself into duty for duty’s 
sake, whereas duty is to be expressed through particular 
deeds. The moral agent, capable of obeying the impera- 
tive, actuated as he is by contrasted impulses, must con- 
sider what the good will is good for. If duty stood wholly 
unrelated to inclination, it would lose the alternatives 
which through specific duties take shape and are forced 
home as problems to be solved. The feelings and emotions 
are essential.6 To adopt the good will alone would be to 
make out a wholly new table of virtues, incapable of 
natural adjustment in terms of praise and blame; it would 
no longer be the good will of the good workman, the good 
father, the good citizen.® 

Our estimate of Kant should turn, however, on sure 
knowledge of precisely what he sought to do, and his cen- 
tral principle once recognized, it is chiefly a question of 
carrying it into application. Kant admits all the way 
along that experience can alone settle many matters which 
do not now concern him, in his explicitly limited inquiry. 
Experience can alone decide, for example, what conforms 
to the feeling of pleasure.” Kant holds that the happiness 
of others may very well be the object of the will of a 
rational being, but the point is that happiness can not be 
the determining principle.* A very high place is to be 
assigned to love as an ideal, and so the Kantian system 
may be very directly connected with Christianity. The 
summum bonum may be the whole object of our practical 
reason, but not even this can be the determining principle. 
The first essential to morality having been ascertained, 

5 Cf. Seth, op. cit., p. 165. 

6 See Green, Prolegomena, 3rd ed., p. 266. For other objections, 
see W. Fite, Introd. Study of Ethics, 1903, p. 180; A. K. Rogers, 
The Theory of Ethics, p. 60. 


7 Op. cit., p. 184. 
8 Ibid., p. 147. 


166 Goodness and Freedom 


Christianity supplies the second indispensable element of 
the highest good, by representing the world in which ra- 
tional beings devote themselves with all their souls to the 
moral law as a kingdom of God, in which nature and 
morality are brought into a harmony foreign to each by 
itself, by a holy Author who makes the derived summum 
bonum possible.® Thus Kant opens the door into the world 
of religion at the point where the moral law needs its 
spiritual incentive or sanction. 

Intuitionism.—Intuition is usually defined as immediate 
judgment regarding what ought to be done, or what ought 
to be the goal of conduct. Intuitionism, assuming the 
existence of intuition as a faculty, holds that certain kinds 
of actions are unconditionally prescribed, that is, without 
regard to results. It appeals to the fact that we know 
what we ought to do, know the actions which are right in 
themselves, although we do not know what conduct will 
secure happiness. The existence of moral intuitions is the 
central fact.t° If by any chance we know at all that hap- 
piness is the only rational end of action, we must know it 
intuitively ; for the method of experience has failed. In- 
tuition is said therefore to disclose the needed rules of 
action, to yield convincing maxims which show what is 
right. In brief, intuition is supposed to guarantee the in- 
trinsic nature of values, for example, the value of truth- 
speaking. The apprehension of the quality of an act is 
held to be a sufficient test of its worth. 

Objections to Intuitionism—The psychological objec- 
tion to intuitionism is that separation into faculties is no 
longer regarded as intelligible; moral intuition, as we have 
before noted, is a form of intuition in general, and this 
in turn has had a history, it does not yield a different 
kind of knowledge. To sunder intuition from the intel- 
lectual life and attribute special authority to it, would be 
to separate it from the very sources which yield its content. 
In reply, it might be argued that intuition, like Kant’s 
‘good will’’ or practical reason, is not psychological ; but 


9 Ibid., p. 270. 
10 See Sidgwick, op. cit., p. 200. 


Formalism and Intuition 167 


that the priority and superiority of intuition are logically 
demanded in order to make the basis of ethics secure. The 
universal basis has, however, been made far more secure in 
Kant’s rationalism than by any appeal to intuition dis- 
eriminated as a moral faculty. Moral intuition is indeed 
real, it yields values, is the recipient of insights, and so it 
is to be revered as one of the processes by which the mind 
works, that is, by contrast with slow processes of induc- 
tion. But this its moral and spiritual value is to be dis- 
tinguished from the attempt to find a basis of moral theory 
in the pronouncements of common sense, tacitly assumed, 
and vested with authority on the assumption that these 
principles have had a peculiar origin. It may indeed be 
necessary to make various postulates of moral reason— 
God, freedom, and immortality—but these assumptions are 
made on the basis of profound insight into the realm of 
values, namely, the conclusion that there is an ultimate 
value which does not need to be demonstrated. 

Ambiguities of the Term.—The term intuition is some- 
times used with reference to the implied ‘‘faculty,’’ but 
again it signifies authoritative utterance. Sometimes it is 
practically a synonym for ‘‘éonscience,’’ as the tribunal 
beyond which there is no appeal; and conscience in turn 
may either be a direct form of intellectual perception, or 
an intuitive conviction involving a reference to maxims 
accepted as ‘‘self-evident laws.’’ Again, it may mean the 
assumed existence of a moral ‘‘sense’’ or moral ‘‘taste’’ 
in which there is less emphasis on formal elements. Intui- 
tive utterances are said to be products of ‘‘moral reason’’ 
and yet it is not supposed to be rational to consider the 
results of moral conduct.™ 

In the Kantian doctrine of ‘‘practical reason’’ intuition 
is infallible, an ‘‘erring conscience’’ is a chimera. For 
Shaftesbury and Hutcheson,” conscience or intuition was 
similar in function to esthetic perception of the distinction 
between beauty and its opposite. That is, morality was 
made to rest on a specific ‘‘feeling,’’ but without yielding 


11 Cf. Rashdall, op. cit., Vol. I, Chap. IV, 
12 See Selby-Bigge, op. cit., Vol. I, 


168 Goodness and Freedom 


a standard sufficient to show the authority of this feeling 
over all others. Here, too, faulty psychology was certainly 
the original difficulty; for feeling is not thus separable 
from the judgments which assign to it its authority and 
distinctiveness, it lacks the universal validity required of 
an ethical standard. Critics have shown that the implied 
moral reaction or integration is due, not to a single specific 
feeling or emotion, but to a whole complex of feelings and 
emotions, together with various judgments.? 

However great the difficulty in defining what intuition 
as ‘‘conscience’’ is said to be, it has been assumed that 
there is latent in the self either a power which becomes 
explicit as universal conscience, the ultimate principle of 
morals; or principles of common sense in the entire race, 
and sufficient to show what man ought to do, what actions 
are right in themselves. Experience would not then be 
necessary in order to produce moral laws or rules, nor 
would it be necessary to try out moral deeds in the light 
of consequences before choice could be made of those that 
are most eligible. In popular form, such a view of intui- 
tion or conscience would mean that each individual could 
put matters to the test by awaiting the dictates of intuitive 
reason or moral feeling. We shall return to the question 
of conscience in its popular form in another chapter. 

self-evident Truths——However the theory is stated, 
the objection is that we have no evidence to prove either 
that innate moral principles exist, to guide all men in the 
same way, as if moral truth were ‘‘self-evident,’’ or that 
we have a faculty or ‘‘sense’’ to which we can appeal for 
infallible decisions. The alleged intuitive truths by which 
we are to judge differ with individuals and groups, at 
various periods in the world’s history, and it is out of the 
question to convince one group of the ‘‘common sense’’ 
truths of another group. Self-evident truths bear evidence 
of having gradually won recognition through the experi- 
ences of those who have adopted them as authoritative. 
Whatever the value of principles adopted because our 
*‘moral sense’’ approves of them, this intuitive approval 

13 Cf, Rashdall, ibid., p. 144. 


Formalism and Intuition 169 


does not put them in a category by themselves. Custom, 
habit, tradition, and ideas of authority or moral sanctions 
have all played a part in producing our moral convictions ; 
it is as impossible to isolate the rationalistic element of 
intuition from the rest of our nature as to single out moral 
sensibility and oppose ‘‘taste’’ to ‘‘reason”’ as the criterion. 
We bring judgment and experience to bear when compar- 
ing the principles which various moral leaders have ad- 
vocated. The test is not to take such truths as they read, 
but to regard them as we would any other propositions 
which we analyze and interpret by reference to the con- 
ditions under which they were produced. Principles which 
ean be rationally justified or explained are not to be re- 
garded as innate or infallible, as independent or absolute; 
but are to be brought out into the open and tested, proved 
by reason and experience, without any claims which, if 
accepted on authority, would involve pre-judgments and 
a blind appeal to conscience as final. The greatest di- 
versity of opinion is found in the history of morality, 
where unanimity has been assumed.t4 The assumed self- 
evident morality put forward as objective is likely to prove 
dogmatic, subjective, lacking a single all-comprehensive 
imperative by which conduct is to be determined.’®? And 
if we were finally to agree upon a set of principles drawn 
up on an intuitive basis four conditions would be needed, 
according to Sidgwick, to establish a given proposition; 7 
The maxims of common sense do not fulfill these condi- 
tions. 

On the basis of these conclusions, critics have come to 
see that the morality of common sense can not be raised 
into a system of intuitive ethics, nor can intuitionism be 
established by appeal to reason as if it alone constituted 
both the authority and the content of morality. And so 
rationalism has been enriched. For some moralists, the 
sense of duty is identical with rational love of persons, 
involving also love for God; and Kant’s ‘‘kingdom of 

14 Cf. Everett, op. cit., p. 263. 


15 See Seth, op. cit., p. 180, foll. 
16 Op. cit., p. 337. 


170 Goodness and Freedom 

ends’’ finds recognition in the social application of ration- 
alism. The ‘‘autonomy of the will’’ gives place to the larger 
autonomy of the moral self, recognized as in the pro- 
foundest sense law-giver, or at least as creative participant 
in the moral law. Granted the enriched content, due to 
Hegel, English and American idealists, Kant’s rules of 
action have added value as workable guides: 

““So act as if the law of thine action were to become by 
thy will universal law. 

‘‘Regard humanity whether in thine own person or in 
that of any one else always as an end and never as a 
means only. 

‘‘Act as a member of a kingdom of ends.”’ 


REFERENCES 


Mackenzin, J. S., Manual of Ethics, Bk. II, Chap. III. 

FULLERTON, G. 8., Handbook of Ethical Theory, Chaps. XXIII, 
X XIX. 

GREEN, T. H., Prolegomena to Ethics, Bk. III, Chap. I. 

SetH, J., Ethical Principles, Part I, Chap. II. 

RASHDALL, H., The Theory of Good and Evil, Vol. I, Chaps. 
IV, V. 

EvERrrn, W. G., Moral Values, Chap. II, Sec. III, Chap. IX, 
Sec. IV. 

Braviey, F. H., Hthical Studies, Chap. IV. 

PAULSEN, F., A System of Ethics, tr. by F. Thilly, 1899, p. 194. 

JANET, P., The Theory of Morals, trans. 1883 (La Morale, 1874). 
Chap. IT. 

Sip@wick, H., The Methods of Ethics, Bk. ITI. 


CHAPTER XII 
IDEALISM 


Socrates.—The difficulties encountered by the two types 
of moralists we have been considering, the hedonists and 
rationalists, might have been surmounted for the most part 
had ethical development taken its clue more directly from 
Soerates, Plato, and Aristotle. Socrates did not sunder 
the good from pleasure, the useful, or particular; but 
sought the universal needed to coordinate man’s various 
activities by disclosing a standard of action. Right action 
seemed to him impossible without right knowledge. When 
right knowledge is gained, good conduct will follow; since 
knowledge is the strongest factor in our nature. That man 
is just, who knows what is right. If then we would find 
what is permanently or universally good, we must know 
ourselves fundamentally. Socrates sought to awaken men 
to realization of what they are, what they should seek to 
be and to do in order to make the best out of life. For 
the virtuous life, a life internally at unity, is a work of art 
in which every part is determined by its relation to the 
whole, as the ideal. Such a life is characterized by Eude- 
monia (happiness), which Socrates did not limit either 
to activities or feelings by themselves, or to the pleasure 
or satisfaction which results from fortunate expression. 
He did not limit the good to a single virtue, although he 
put great stress on temperance (his own life was an ideal 
example) as the basis of the virtues. In his own person- 
ality he possessed great power to quicken others to recog- 
nition of large-minded virtue. 

Plato.—It is possible to give only a suggestion of the 
surpassing idealism of Plato, in the space at our disposal. 
For him the desires and pleasures, the irrational elements 

171 


172 Goodness and Freedom 


of our nature are indeed inferior to the life of reason. But 
Plato is a rationalist without being too formal. He recog- 
nizes, for example, the quickening power of love, with the 
tendency of people to do things together; our sense of de- 
pendence, our ideals of friendship growing out of mutual- 
ity, and our yearning for completeness. While love is the 
deep original prompting which sends us forth into experi- 
ence, it is insight into the ends which love seeks that 
makes the good explicit, namely, in relation to Beauty, 
Truth, Reality or the ideal order of Being. Love is at first 
a sign of our low estate, our sense of limitation or inade- 
quacy. We may indeed take ourselves to be complete. 
But no one is self-sufficient. Only through conjunction 
with others can we become complete. The desires and 
conflicts we become aware of are indications that two kinds 
of love are active in us, passion and ideal love. Love, 
indeed, in its awakening extends through the entire range 
of experience, from passion in its lowliest estate to pure 
love for the Eternal Ideas. The true lover is the phi- 
losopher. Hence the significance of Plato’s fundamental 
inquiry into the nature of justice in his Republic. 

The individual is first a citizen, the state being prior 
to the individual, who, existing for it, needs to find his 
organic place. Emphasis falls on harmony among the 
classes in the state, the powers of the self (desire, the 
Spirited principle, reason), and the virtues (temperance, 
courage, wisdom, and justice or the organizing principle). 
Virtue as a whole is the right combination of these the 
cardinal virtues. Order in the inner life—balance, tem- 
perance, control—is the basis of order in the social life of 
the individual. Reason is power in achieving this order or 
unity: it is in command through the ruling class in the 
state; it yields the form or system of the virtues. The end 
or goal is what is significant, not the original prompting 
of our nature which sent us forth into experience. Knowl- 
edge is virtue for Plato, as for Socrates. But he assigns 
a definite content to it, as already indicated, and shows 
that our powers belong together in an ascending scale. 
The best element should lead in us and in the state, that 


Idealism 173 


is, the ideal state to be organized by the few best minds, 
the men of power, who, without private property or love 
of gain, live for the sake of the good. There should be 
a careful gradation of vocations according to fitness, each 
man to fulfill a function. The element of pleasure or 
happiness finds place in Plato’s scheme as welfare or well- 
being. Only through knowledge of the good as the high- 
est end and essence is it possible to assign the lesser virtues 
to their respective levels. It is the philosopher who knows 
what real happiness is. 

Aristotle—With Aristotle ethics becomes for the first 
time in history a distinctive science, and his Ethics? is a 
study of the ultimate end of all striving, the highest Good 
which fulfills all other aims. This end is in brief Eude- 
monia, but everything depends on our understanding of 
what constitutes happiness. The masses might define it as 
pleasure, wealth, honor, or something similar; cultivated 
people would define it as virtue and philosophy. It is 
not a state of subjective feeling, but an objective form of 
life, for the one who is blessed with a good lot in life.? 
Aristotle does not start with the uncritical assumption 
that we are by nature morally good. Man has various pos- 
sibilities open to him, owing to the fact that he is actuated 
by both rational and irrational impulses. Among these is 
a possibility of virtue, or the good. One would not start 
then (with the Cyrenaics) with the proposition that the 
good is pleasure, as naturally sought by the individual. 
The good, defined as happiness, can only be attained 
through training, practice, the endeavor to acquire well- 
being through wise habits, the selection and codrdination 
of desires, the adjustment between the rational and the 
irrational. 

Virtue, moreover, is a mean, and this plainly is an 
attainment. Further still, man is a social being, and can 
attain to the good only through the state. The tests of 
virtue are not found in our sensibilities, but in our ration- 
ality as the codrdinating principle. We must so train 


1Tr. by Welldon, 1892. 
2Cf. Paulsen, op. cit., p. 37. 


174 Goodness and Freedom 


ourselves that virtue shall be habitual, so that we shall 
readily do the right. 

Aristotle’s ethical theory is essentially practical, adapted 
to this world, looking toward existing states as supplying 
the necessary fields of activity. The ‘‘master of those who 
know’’ keeps close to the actual facts of life as he finds 
it; he sees the difficulties in the way of carrying out 
Socrates’ proposition that virtue is knowledge, on account 
of the probable conflict between desires and reason, and 
because he admits will as a factor. He is interested in the 
well-rounded life of the gentleman, the scholar; and hence 
holds that a fairly long life and many physical conditions 
are essential. He does not consider the problems of the 
individual who can not command these advantages, nor 
does he discuss self-denial. His crowning emphasis is on 
the intellectual virtues, on contemplation, or the life of 
reason in the scholar. Thus his ideal departs in a measure 
from the eivie or social standard and becomes more in- 
dividualistic. He sees the force of the argument for 
pleasure, and holds that pleasure is not rightfully the 
motive but rather the result of virtue, namely, as happi- 
ness, attained through reason. Virtue, in brief, is a state 
of deliberate moral purpose consisting in a ‘‘mean’’ rela- 
tive to ourselves, the mean being determined by reason, 
as the wise man would determine it. The ideal or perfect 
man is the one who attains self-realization, as the rational 
standard or test of the good. 

Nature and Spirit.—Aristotle’s eudemonism has been 
variously developed or modified to include elements of the 
moral life not adequately emphasized or in order to re- 
solve the dualism in the nature and life of man. In be- 
half of Christianity Seth suggests the importance of mak- 
ing the antithesis and conflict between sensibility and 
reason as sharp as possible? While the Greek ideal was 
one of moderation or the mean, Christianity widens the 
breach between nature and spirit, the mind and the flesh, 
widens it to overcome it: self-sacrifice must precede and 
make possible self-fulfillment. Man, rising out of nature, 

3 Op. cit., p. 194. 


Idealism 175 


as a superior or rational being, asserts his superiority to 
nature; hence follows the rebirth of the active being, which 
lives anew in the spiritual life, all becoming organic to the 
one central principle. Hence Seth dwells on the life of 
goodness as a transfiguration, everything being hallowed 
when it becomes the vehicle of the divine in man. 

The Reconciling Principle.—For Seth then as for many 
others who have sought for the unity between Greek and 
Christian ideals, the reconciling principle is found in ‘‘the 
ethics of personality,’’ in self-realization as the standard.* 
This involves, in the interpretation Seth gives it, neither 
mere self-sacrifice nor self-gratification, but the more com- 
plete development of both sides of our nature such that 
not even the rational self is dominant but rather the total 
self, rational and sentient. The ethical problem then is 
to define what self-realization shall mean, namely, that 
‘‘the several changing desires, instead of being allowed to 
pursue their several ways, and to seek each its own good 
or satisfaction, are so correlated and organized that each 
becomes instrumental to the fuller and truer life of the 
rational human self.’’ ® 

True Autonomy.—It is this power of transcending the 
instinctive, impulsive, sentient life through will which con- 
stitutes man a moral being in the higher sense. Every 
natural tendency to activity is to come before the bar of 
reason’s higher insight. The triumphant life of the spirit 
is not smooth and easy. As in nature, so there is 
always opposition, with intractable elements to be sub- 
dued to spiritual form. The lower propensities are not 
to be cast out but sublimated into the life of reason, which 
makes the interests of sensibility its own. While nature is 
under law, man has wittingly to subject himself to law, 
the law or order in both cases being the expression of 
reason. It is moral reason, acting in accordance with its 
insights, which makes the various activities of our nature 
higher or lower, interpreting all by reference to its stand- 
ard of self-realization. Thus we have the true autonomy 


4 Ibid., p. 198. 
5 Ibid., p. 200. 


176 Goodness and Freedom 


of the moral life. Thus regarded, virtue is not a sponta- 
neous natural growth, but is constituted virtue by man’s 
judgment and conduct as a moral person. For, as Aris- 
totle has shown, nature gives only the capacity of ac- 
quiring virtue. 

Whether one is able to follow Seth’s view of self-real- 
ization to the last will depend on the conclusion concerning 
self-sacrifice, which he interprets to be ‘‘dying to live,’’ 
with a losing of the lower life and crucifying of the flesh.® 
Recent ethical thought seeks to avoid the terminology of 
‘*denial.’’ Sublimation or the transforming of the self 
is not now understood as sacrifice of the lower self. But 
recent thought would agree with Seth’s conclusion that 
the perfect moral integration includes happiness, carefully 
defined, not as the sum of pleasures, but as their harmony 
or system in which pleasure is a concomitant of activity, 
with egoism and altruism brought into closest relation. 

Paulsen’s Solution.—Paulsen arrives at his solution by 
contrasting the ideal of perfection of the Greeks with the 
Christian spirit of world-denial.? The great truths en- 
graven on the hearts of men by Christianity are that suf- 
fering, sin, and guilt are essential phases of human life, 
and that the world lives by the vicarious death of the just 
and innocent. Joined with these truths was a longing for 
the transcendent, the goal of life being in the blessedness 
of the hereafter, here enjoyed in anticipation. In any 
ease the rule of reason, or the limitation and discipline 
of the sensuous desires is demanded as the pre-condition 
of perfection. Paulsen’s solution puts emphasis on the 
“‘energistic’’ or will-element of the self, with an objective 
content of life found in definite concrete duties: ‘‘such 
modes of conduct and volition are good as tend to realize 
the highest goal of the will, which may be called welfare,’’ 
the perfection of our being and the perfect exercise of 
life.® The end or goal pursued by the will is not feeling 
(hedonism), but action. The real business of ethics is to 


6 Ibid., p. 206. 
7 Op. cit., Bk. I. 
8 Ibid., p. 157. 
9Ibid., p. 223. 


Idealism 177 


determine the objective value of the various modes of 
conduct, not to decide upon the subjective or personal 
value of the agent’s prompting to action. Good always 
presupposes a relation: good for something. So, too, duty 
finds its content in custom, while conscience is the conscious- 
ness of custom, or knowledge of a higher will by which 
the individual will feels itself bound: conscience acts as 
an inhibition of particular will-impulses which deviate 
from the normal, its positive function being reflection on 
the ideal of the perfect life. The yearning of the will 
for perfection is then the root of morality, and that which 
is a demand in morals becomes a reality in religion.2° Re- 
sponsibility is divided between the individual, the collective 
bodies which have molded him, his family, his social 
class, his nation, humanity at large, and the All-real. Im- 
pulses form the natural basis of the virtues; compassion 
or sympathy, for example, is not good in itself but is the 
natural foundation of the virtue of benevolence. Impulses 
are also the permanent basis of the virtues, fashioned into 
virtues by reason. Hence Paulsen puts much stress on 
self-control as the virtue which regulates conduct by ra- 
tional will, independently of momentary feelings; as the 
capacity to govern life by purposes and ideals, the funda- 
mental condition of all moral virtues, the pre-condition of 
all human worth. Without self-control there would be 
no personality, no freedom. Hence, in a more practical 
way than by the traditional ethical method Paulsen con- 
siders the virtues in much detail, how they may be realized, 
for example, the Greek virtue of temperance, also the 
ideals of the economic life, culture, the spiritual life, with 
stress on compassion, benevolence, and justice. 

Janet’s Hudemonism.—In Janet’s unification of Greek 
and later ethics Kant and Aristotle are brought into close 
relation.127 The term rational eudemonism is used to dis- 
tinguish this view from utilitarianism and from the too 
abstract formalism of Kant. The basis of moral science, 

10 Ibid., p. 419. 


11 [bid., p. 483. 
12 The Theory of Morals, tr., 1883. 


178 Goodness and Freedom 


Janet holds, is good anterior to duty, not duty anterior 
to good. Kant is right so far as moral good is concerned, 
but moral good presupposes natural goods, which are to 
be estimated by their excellence, independently of our 
feeling. Natural good is not limited to pleasure, as some 
have assumed, but includes industry, science, taste for the 
beautiful, the affections; the first promptings of kindness, 
moderation, modesty, sincerity, also various innate incli- 
nations. Moral good signifies the good use of natural 
goods.1* To free moral action of all effective objects would 
be to destroy the action itself. Kant is right in his analysis 
of duty as universal law, obligatory for its own sake; for 
the sole legitimate root of morality springs from the idea 
of law. But Kant’s morality should rest on that of Aris- 
totle. Natural goods are essentially good. That is why 
they are of inestimable worth. The goodness of God is no 
less good because it is not for him a matter of duty. And 
natural good is not constituted by the pleasure it produces, 
is not to be sought for the sake of feeling. 

It follows that the good will is not the only thing abso- 
lutely and unequivocally good: to say this would be to 
confound the objective and the subjective, to make con- 
science the absolute basis. Intelligence, resolution, self- 
control, and moderation, for instance, are essentially good, 
although they can be misused. By reducing good to a 
good will, Kant really changed his formal morality to a 
subjective morality. An exclusively formal morality would 
be arbitrary. Universality is an insufficient test, hence 
the force of Schleiermacher’s criticism that the intrinsic 
hollowness of the law is to be remedied only by making 
one’s self worthy of happiness. The principle of humanity 
corrects and completes but also controverts Kant’s formal 
principle: humanity is an object to be respected or per- 
fected, an end to be attained; and it yields the matter 
which is contrasted with the form, the reason and ground 
for the law, the object of choice.14 A will is good, in brief, 
in obedience to recognition of the ideal of humanity. The 


13 Op. cit., p. 31. 
14 Ibid., p. 40. 


Idealism 179 


good consists in perfection and pleasure indissolubly 
united, in the most excellent activity: the principle of 
perfection explains our duties towards others by tracing 
them back to our duties towards ourselves.° We can not 
form a conception of good without feeling that it is our 
duty to perform it. Virtue may then indeed become ‘‘a 
creative act,’’ and in its most sublime features free and 
individual. Thus to attain virtue the ‘‘intelligence’’ which 
Kant emphasizes should be added to by love: a pure will 
does good for the love of good. In a state of absolute 
purity the will is indeed simply the voluntary love of 
good, without effort, without struggle, and without obedi- 
ence to a dry and abstract law.1® If there is respect for 
law why should there not be love, namely, for the sake of 
good, for moral beauty and moral purity, for humanity, 
and for God as found in all men? 

Types of Goodness.—We find then that unifying ethical 
theories include an extensive variety of goods, and we are 
reminded of the fact that the term ‘‘good’’ compasses the 
whole field under such types as the following: (1) the 
political ideal of the welfare of society, including state 
and civic virtue, as in ancient Greece; (2) the individual- 
istic ideal of the self-sufficient wise man inculeated by 
various Greek schools and transmitted to modern times as 
a part of our cultural conception; (3) the ascetic ideal 
of world-negation, connected with mysticism, Buddhism, 
medieval Christianity, and the philosophy of Schopen- 
hauer; (4) the modern esthetic ideal with its emphasis on 
individuality, as in romanticism; (5) the utilitarian ideal 
of the economic welfare of society, with emphasis on ex- 
ternal conditions; (6) the larger-minded Christian ideal 
of membership in one another, a brotherhood of spiritual 
personalities, with reference to various Christian virtues, 
in contrast with the cardinal virtues of the Greeks. Each 
of these conceptions requires modification, if it is to become 
eligible in a complete system. The political ideal of Plato, 
for instance, tends to over-emphasis on the state. The wise 


15 Ibid., p. 97. 
16 Ibid., p. 358, 


180 Goodness and Freedom 


man’s ideal has found its permanent place in modern views 
of the inner life, but as noble as this ideal may be it stands 
for a phase only of the complete life of goodness. Self- 
denial is one aspect only of self-realization. Natural good 
is not any longer to be contrasted with moral goodness in 
disparaging terms. The good is anything in daily life 
which ministers to our needs and fosters our welfare, nat- 
ural good is constantly acquiring moral value; and things 
are not to be rejected as evil or immoral unless they work 
against human welfare.*7 Good conduct in these terms is 
any conduct which tends to develop the best type of life. 
In this sense ideas of goodness enter into every moment of 
our conduct. We no longer think of a good thing or qual- 
ity as possessing absolute power, as if, like Kant’s ‘‘good 
will’’ it appeared to function by itself. But a term which 
has so many meanings is likely to obscure our inquiry. It 
is therefore imperative, with Professor Palmer, who has 
dwelt on the organic character of goodness with greater 
persuasiveness than other ethical idealists, to classify the 
meanings under two general heads.*® 

Extrinsic Goodness.— We speak, for example, of a good 
day (for our purposes), a serviceable instrument or ma- 
chine, such as a lawn-mower, which cuts the grass evenly. 
A good thing of this type is always good for; some end is 
to be attained; the good is the useful. In extrinsic good- 
ness there is always an adjustment of the object to some- 
thing which lies outside itself. A good law is one that pre- 
serves peace and order. A good house-maid, clerk, police- 
man, ship captain, or mayor is efficient in the given social 
situation. The test is fitness to play a part, to fulfill a 
function in relation with other parts, for instance, the 
clerk who makes entries only. <A satisfactory constitution 
is good for the state it serves. A servant is instrumental 
in the home, as the hand is instrumental to the body as a 
whole. Each part or member, fulfilling a function, is lim- 
ited, aids and is aided, as in team-play.?® 

17 Everett, op. cit., pp. 36, 37, 45. 

18 The Nature of Goodness, p. 11. 


is The term ‘‘goodness’’ is to be identified with the term ‘‘ value,’’ 
as used in our preceding chapters. 


Idealism 181 


Intrinsic Goodness.—Transferring this idea of organic 
relatedness from the sphere of efficiency to the moral realm, 
we note that intrinsic goodness or value is not means but 
end. A man as a mere servant is organically efficient. As 
a ‘‘person’’ he is an end in himself, living in the realm of 
the ideal. But in the moral sphere there is both extrinsic 
and intrinsic goodness. No person is complete in himself, 
and his self-realization is essential to the higher welfare of 
the whole. 

The Moral Organism.—This inter-relatedness of parts 
to a whole is brought out by the definition of an organism 
as ‘‘that assemblage of active and differing parts in which 
each part is both means and end.’’*° Thus the father of 
a family serves and is served in the home, the community, 
the state, and the country. He is, let us say, a merchant; 
and so he serves and is served by any number of other 
dealers and producers within and without his own com- 
munity. The same is true of those who contribute to pub- 
lic safety, the law, education, and the religious life of the 
town. No one, however important his service, is complete 
in himself, although each is strong in his incompleteness. 
This organic relatedness is first of all a fact, and thus far 
obvious. But with the realization of the dependence of, any 
member of the community on the others, hence of the 
opportunity he has to participate in this social relationship 
to the full, the matter-of-fact interdependence becomes ethi- 
eal. This great conception becomes indeed so important, 
when one begins to see its force and the incentive it af- 
fords for doing one’s best, that only gradually does its 
significance dawn upon the mind. Even the figure of the 
organism proves to be entirely inadequate. Indeed, objec- 
tions to it have repeatedly been raised.2t Yet no one has 
proposed any other symbol so rich in content. Running 
back in the history of ethics to Plato’s conception of the 
order and organization of the virtues, and in Christian 
history to the Apostle Paul’s ideal ef corporate conscious- 


20 Palmer, op. cit., p. 24. 
21See, for example, R. M. McConnell, The Duty of Altruism, 1910, 
D3: 


182 Goodness and Freedom 


ness through membership in one another, this idea has the 
richest meanings of any symbol in our language. It sug- 
vests both the division of labor, the diversification of fune- 
tion, and hence the efficiency which characterizes coopera- 
tion at its best, and the ideal of perfect goodness made 
possible in groups and in social life as a whole which 
transcends all finitude or limitation.?? It stands for good- 
ness in its two-fold sense, for extrinsic goodness or service- 
ability, and for intrinsic goodness or fullness and adjust- 
ment of function. The implied ideal is the realization 
through the most productive life of that which is best in 
man. The remainder of this volume will be devoted to the 
working out of this conception of goodness, defined as or- 
ganic self-realization. The idea of the self here under- 
stood has already been discussed in the preceding chapters. 
The implication on the social side is the solidarity of the 
race. The implication on the God-ward side is that in his 
life of participation with his fellowmen man shares the 
one Good which is eternal, the idea of the Good being su- 
preme among the Eternal Values. 

Interdependence.—The foregoing discussions have led 
up to this view from a number of directions. Pyschologi- 
cally speaking, we found every phase of the self dependent 
on other phases, for example, the will in its dependence on 
the involuntary, and the desires; reason with its dependence 
on the senses, on the primitive urge to become productive, 
on experience; and experience with its need of description, 
explanation, and interpretation, passing in turn to char- 
acter and conduct. The various theories of goodness imply 
the need of this conception of the form of personal good- 
ness, aS an assemblage of varied activities requiring organi- 
zation. The qualitative differences of function imply a dis- 
tinction between higher and lower, greater and lesser goods; 
and eventually a scale of values. The greater good is more 
largely contributory, while a good is higher to the degree in 
which it is an end.?* The more richly functional an activ- 


22 Cf. Palmer, ‘‘The Glory of the Imperfect,’’ in The Teacher, 
1908. 


23 Cf. Palmer, The Nature of Goodness, p. 37. 


Idealism 183 


ity is, the greater the goodness. Largeness of organization 
and order are thus the double traits of goodness. The 
inter-relatedness of the work of the teacher in the com- 
munity, for example, illustrates the richly functional ser- 
vice combined with the ideals of character, the power of a 
quickening personality. 

The Test of Goodness.—Comparing this conception of 
goodness—membership in an organism by reference to the 
greater and the higher—with other views, we find that the 
gvood regarded as that which satisfies desire is deficient be- 
cause there is no standard by which to test desires in the 
light of their origins, levels, results, ends or value. For 
desires are not detachable. They come in a context. We 
desire other ends than pleasure, and even happiness or 
satisfaction needs its organizing form in relation to that 
which essential, is contributory to happiness. The theory 
that the good is adaptation to environment is defective 
because, aS we shall see more and more conclusively, the 
inner world is neglected; and because there is no fixed 
environment, but environment is always plastic, derives 
its character in part from the environed object. Goodness 
as the expression of the largest organization aims every- 
where to bring object and environment into fullest codpera- 
tion.2* Again, the good might be regarded as the com- 
mendable, as worthy of approval, honorable, possessing 
good qualities, such as fine manners. The question would 
then be, Commendable for what? If we say that the good 
is that which approaches a goal, how then shall we relate 
the goal with the original prompting? So too the Kan- 
tian conception of the good as the unconditioned would be 
that this view, taken in its sheer universality and without 
the qualifications which other ethical philosophers have 
introduced into it, leaves us without knowledge of the con- 
tent of the good, too greatly separates intrinsic from ex- 
trinsic values. The same objection would be made to any 
view of the good defined as the summum bonum in general, 
that is, if the view in question fails to show how this alleged 
supreme end is related to the various objects which are 

24 Ibid., p. 46. 


184 Goodness and Freedom 


somehow included.2® Even the definition of the good as 
perfection, or the complete character, has been objected 
to by some ethical philosophers who ask, for example. Why 
just this pattern of perfection? *° To read through Green’s 
profound treatise, Prolegomena to Ethics, still one of the 
most complete works we possess, is to find that one must 
first reckon with the Greek and Christian conceptions of 
virtue before one is able to see what shall give appropriate 
content to Green’s ideal. So too the Christian ideal of 
perfection as contained in the New Testament turns upon 
the content to be assigned to the self, to conduct, and to 
the life of devotedness.- Or if we declare, with Socrates, 
that knowledge is virtue; or, with others, that altruistic 
love or service is the standard, the same questions arise 
concerning both the content and the organization, the re- 
lations between the virtues and their opposites, between 
self-love or development and service. The question of the 
order among the virtues is indeed paramount, as we shail 
see in Part Three, when we consider, first, the individual 
virtues, then the social, and finally the principles implied 
in their organization. 

The Stages of Goodness——We are sent back then to 
the organic view of goodness as social self-realization, with 
the implied conception of capacities progressively realized 
in various functions, with emphasis both on the activities 
which yield the dynamic and on the ends discerned; also 
on the ideals made explicit by knowledge of the content 
of goodness. The static conception of passive complete- 
ness would not satisfy our idea of perfection.27 The moral 
life is a process, a becoming; conduct is an active term, the 
unity or complete integration of our moral powers is an 
achievement to be made by each individual. The individual 
verifies the conception of goodness as organic by consider- 
ing (1) self-consciousness as essential but defective and 
needing coherence and unity; (2) self-direction, includ- 


25 Summarized by Mackenzie as wealth, independence, power, fame, 
knowledge, love, service, peace, and freedom; op. cit., p. 3. 

26 Cf. Fullerton, op. cit., p. 253. Mackenzie’s answer is given, op. 
cit., p. 234. 

27 Cf. Everett, op. cit., p. 147. 


Idealism 185 


ing intention and volition; self-development, with its con- 
tradictory terms; and (3) self-sacrifice, which is often jar- 
ring in character, leaving with us a paradox, and calling 
for reconsideration.2® Any of these elements taken alone 
implies incompleteness, as we would reasonably expect; 
‘‘nothing is fair or good alone.’’?° For there are stages 
of goodness: relationships to both nature and spirit, the 
inner life and social life, together with the scale of values 
which the individual draws up for practical use. Any 
phase of the process of self-development tending to run 
to excess needs its corrective. For example, the good de- 
fined as excellence of character with reference to culture 
as ‘‘symmetrical,’’ with beauty as a test, might seem to 
imply little more than the esthetic ideal so often dispar- 
aged as ‘‘Greek’’ in comparison with the Christian con- 
ception of self-denial (eulogized without analysis). But 
the milder Christian virtues—humility, forgiveness, non- 
resistance—would in turn need to be put in relation with 
some of the more aggressive virtues, and those which, like 
justice, call for social organization. Some people tend too 
strongly, by nature, toward introspection or toward self- 
sacrifice ; while others tend to be so objective that they need 
to learn the values of the life of thought. 
Self-determination.—Self-realization might indeed be 
considered with relation to each of our prevailing traits 
or qualities and in each case it would be plain that any 
characteristic would call for all the others. The moralist 
with rationalistic bent is likely to see in this goal the full 
attainment of the life of reason, and if, with Aristotle, 
he meditates upon ultimate things, he will ask for abundant 
time and rich opportunities for the life of thought. But, 
voicing another group, Wright, for example, defines this 
view as ‘‘that form of life which is required to satisfy com- 
pletely the will.”’*° Reason may indeed impress itself 
upon us as a distinctive human power, as extending the 
view of man to include a world of objects around, and as 


28 See Palmer, op. cit., Chaps. IV-VI. 
29 See Emerson’s poem, ‘‘Each and All.’? 
30H. W. Wright, Self-realization, 1913, p. 83. 


186 Goodness and Freedom 


enlarging the experience of man to embrace the lives and 
personalities of others.*! But volition is ‘‘the organizing 
agency,’’ the synthetic activity comprehensive of feeling 
and thought, covering the whole sphere of the inner life, 
from the desires amidst which it appears, the actions from 
purpose with which it is very directly concerned, to action 
from ideals, and volition as creative of self-conscious per- 
sonality. Complete self-organization and self-determina- 
tion are essential. Hence Wright argues that even in the 
ease of self-sacrifice, if a duty at all, the sacrifice must be 
of ultimate benefit to the individual, in the fulfillment of 
his own good.*? Moral experience seems to show that self- 
sacrifice is ‘‘a real surrender of personal interests, involv- 
ing the pain of irretrievable loss and calling for genuine 
heroism’? But the solution of the apparent fundamental 
conflict is found in the conception of organization, which 
involves the relation of the part to the whole. ‘‘Self-or- 
ganization begins with a differentiation or diversification 
of conscious life. Volition first expresses itself in a differ- 
entiating out of a mass of tendencies a number of desires. 

. The differentiation of these desires is the first step 
in self-organization and the prerequisite of all further 
moral development.’’*? This organization involves self- 
mastery, that is, the necessity of integrating all single de- 
sires and purposes within the unity of the individual, in 
contrast with self-sacrifice, which is in reality the surrender 
only of the narrower purposes and ambitions of the indi- 
vidual in favor of the social self. Hence it is one of the 
many adjustments of the parts to the whole. This con- 
clusion brings us once more to Palmer’s conception of 
higher and greater goods. 

Coordination —Again, we might start with the good as 
the ideal limit of the desirable, as the satisfaction of all 
sides of our nature, including especially the desire for hap- 

mess and the endeavor to bestow it; hence as calling for 
sublimation (profiting by the lessons of psycho-analysis), 

81 Ibid., p. 116. 


32 Ibid., p. 239. 
33 Ibid., p. 243. 


Idealism 187 


transmutation, or substitution, instead of the old-time self- 
suppression. But the good would then differ as the goal 
from the good as the standard to be used as the means of 
testing incentives along the way, that is, by successive 
judgements, estimates, and practical adjustments. Order 
among the promptings, the organization of a worthy uni- 
verse of desire is indeed the heart of the process. Any 
tendency then would be ‘‘fitting,’’ ‘‘suitable,’’ or ‘‘useful’’ 
in relation to the accepted standard, which would include 
service to others as a motive, to offset too great stress on 
self-development. Desire for self-expression would find 
an appropriate place according to the type of the indi- 
vidual, as in ease of the man of science, the philanthropist, 
the teacher. Economic goods, friends, home, health, rest, 
recreation, avocation, opportunities for growing knowledge 
would find their respective places. A man’s avocation, for 
instance, might be his means of preserving individuality, 
his productivity, creative freedom and power. The pres- 
ervation of this life or spontaneity might then be the sav- 
ine grace of the whole moral scheme, the element of our 
nature which keeps us from becoming erystallized in our 
views, static in our habits, too formal, over-precise, too 
ealculative, too self-consciously ssthetie. 

The Ideal Self.—Virtue as thus understood would be 
far more than ‘‘knowledge”’ in the Socratic sense, since 
knowledge has never been shown to be identical with virtue, 
although knowledge is essential to and may aid in the 
attainment of all the virtues. The self-knowledge for which 
Socrates pleaded would be a prime necessity. For inev- 
itably the question frequently arises, What self is to be 
realized? Which one, among the possible selves, is the 
true or ideal self? ®* Whatever may be said about perfec- 
tion as the standard, with tendencies to prefer Greek or 
Christian types, a certain type of selfhood finds place in 
our thought as the ideal so worthy of our approval that 
we put all other types in a subordinate position. In a 
sense each man is, as Seth says, ‘‘his own measure of good,’’ 


34 Seth, op. cit., p. 5; Rashdall, op. cit., Vol. II, p. 62. 


188 Goodness and Freedom 


and so there appears to be no common standard.** But it 
is man, seeing his ideal self as an end, yet belonging with 
others in a kingdom of ends, who creatively finds his place. 
Hence, in being just himself, he becomes the social or con- 
junct self which is the true self to be realized. The char- 
acter of each of us is to be developed toward rounded 
perfection within the limits essential to concentration on 
something supremely worth doing. There are various 
worthy pattern-types. The finite is necessarily incomplete. 


REFERENCES 


Sipawick, H., Outlines of the History of Ethics, 5th ed., 1902, 
Chap. IT, Sees. ITI—XIT. 

Pautsen, F., System of Ethics, trans., Bk. I, Chap. I; Bk. II, 
Chap. II. 

SetH, J., Ethical Principles, Part I, Chap. IIT. 

JANET, P., Theory of Morals, trans., Chaps. I-ITI. 

FULLERTON, G. S., Handbook of Ethical Theory, Chap. XXVI. 

Parmer, G. H., The Nature of Goodness. 

Mackenzig, J. 8., Manual of Ethics, Bk. II, Chaps. I, V. 

Wricut, H. W., Self-realization, 1913, Part III, Chap. VI. 

MourrHeEaD, J. H., Hlements of Ethics, Bk. IV, Chap. IT. 

RasuHpAuu, H., The Theory of Good and Evil, Vol. II, Chap. ITI. 

Fitrt, W., Introductory Study of Ethics, 1903, Chap. XI. 


35 For other difficulties, see Rashdall, op. cit., p. 63. 


CHAPTER XIII 
DUTY AND RESPONSIBILITY 


The Moral Constant.—We have seen that the idea of 
moral obligation implies a conception of the moral order 
regarded as universal, the moral law being the persistent 
principle implied in successive moral judgments. Morality 
in this sense points to the ideal as an eternal value, as moral 
reason beyond which there is nothing higher. Granted 
this insight, the implied obligation may be expressed as 
duty, with special reference to conduct, the call of the 
moral order as a whole to the parts to sustain it. The 
moral order makes its appeal as an ‘‘ought.’’ It ealls 
for obedience, and so obedience becomes a duty. 

Goodness and Duty.—We have found too that individ- 
ual goodness means realization of our powers through or- 
ganization of our many-sidedness, orderly development and 
expression through dominance of a purpose. Such good- 
ness also implies duty, for goodness carries with it a sense 
of incompleteness. Hence we look beyond the individual 
to the ground of all goodness, with increasing awareness 
of our obligation. Goodness, regarded as inner or personal, 
is relative to the powers and the ideal of each individual 
as a member of social groups: the ought or duty as above 
us is the call to be true to the highest and best. 

The term duty is more definite then than the terms 
‘‘moral obligation,’’ ‘‘right.’’? Duty is the specific ex- 
pression of moral law and obligation. It pertains to my 
whole relationship to God and the neighbor, and includes 
manifold duties. When the term ‘‘right’’ is used, I think 
more of privileges accorded to me, and of struggles for 
rights on the part of social groups in antagonism. By 
*‘duty’’ I mean, among other things, what I give, not in 
return for rights granted to me, but as a moral agent in 

189 


190 Goodness and Freedom 


the largest social sense, contributing or producing. The 
moral law obliges me by putting consequences upon me by 
way of suffering and benefits, intimately relates me to my 
fellows, discloses reciprocity; and yields the supreme op- 
portunity. If I recognize its imperative, I realize that I 
owe not merely allegiance in the sense of what is demanded 
of me but the full measure of devotedness. 

It is well to note what the term duty has meant in ethi- 
eal history, even though we use other terms today and 
qualify its austerities. It has been said, ‘‘That only is a 
duty which I can not make.’’ I find it and must submit to 
it. Anything self-preseribed I can abolish. ‘*You can 
not choose your duty.’’ If you owe it you can not change 
it. It is given, as in the call to duty for one’s country, or 
to one’s parents. And so in Palmer’s terms it involves 
‘‘tied-in-ness.’’? Duty is the recognition of the tie. It 
involves a sentiment of reverence or respect, also the sort of 
conduct which accords with it. Hence the law of duty 
is universal, it does not derive its character from a par- 
ticular case. Duty thus regarded knows no persons, that 
is, no partiality: ‘‘God is no respecter of persons.’’ The 
divine merey or justice descends on all. Hence the formu- 
lations of the moral law as the Golden Rule and the Cate- 
gorical Imperative. 

Duty and Inclination—Again, the idea of duty has 
been made specific by contrasting it with our knowledge of 
inclination and the problems it involves. Inclination im- 
plies self-interest, impulses and desires which tend toward 
unlimited expression. Control or codrdination of desires, 
emotions, and other incentives is imperative. Self-inter- 
ests tempt me to indulge myself, to take my ease and 
my time: but duty summons me to put self aside, forget 
it, at times to neglect even my weariness, that I may rise 
to the occasion. There are many frailties to be understood 
and overcome. My lesser self may tend toward selfishness, 
if not toward evil, vice, or crime. Civil law everywhere 
takes account of the manifestations of this lesser self, and 
prescribes obedience to law as a duty. 

1See Paulsen’s explanation, op. cit., p. 348. 





Duty and Responsibility 191 


Hence it has long been usual in the sphere of personal 
conduct to put the self through a measure of discipline, to 
curb the lesser self in all its activities, and attain self-con- 
trol. Such discipline has often entailed severe training in 
doing what is difficult, in facing what is hard and over- 
coming it because it is what one does not want to do. In 
fact, duty and difficulty have seemed synonymous. Self- 
sacrifice, because hard, has appeared to be duty in its es- 
sence. Duty has called not only for Stoic self-control but 
for Christian disciplinary obedience. 

Objections to Duty.—It has been questioned whether 
good results have sprung from duty as an incentive. Duty 
as a motive may indeed be a necessity in war-time, but it 
has lost its appeal for the most part since men of the ranks 
questioned the right of leaders who do not fight to make 
war for their own political or other private interests. 
When self-sacrifice is praised as a duty in war-time, it is 
easy to fall into fallacies and to regard all sacrifice as a 
virtue. Meager results have attended the Christian appeal 
to duty in the long ages. Many creeds, institutions, and 
even churches have been maintained through a sense of 
duty, long after life had departed out of them. Precedent 
and familiarity have often played us false. 

Life is not merely a discipline. It is also an art and may 
be a joy. The contrast between inclination and duty may 
be intelligible up to a certain point, but the ideal is to un- 
derstand, enlist, codrdinate rather than to condemn and 
eurb. To repress is to suffer detrimental reaction. Mor- 
ality has been greatly held back in lands where self disci- 
pline, self-sacrifice and asceticism have been regarded as 
the chief means. 

Duty does not necessarily involve a divided self. The 
lesser or lower self may be a means to an end. The struggle 
may be incidental. The hard or difficult stage is found in 
the formation of any habit, in so far as persistent effort 
is required: the severity is not a sign of virtue. The 
Greek ideal of harmony between parts, due proportion 
attained by practice in which beauty of soul in a beautiful 
body is the test, is more rational. It retains the element 


192 Goodness and Freedom 


of satisfaction. The value of an act is then seen in rela- 
tion to the doer, the person to whom it is done, the time, 
the means, the motive; and so the deed is lifted above the 
level of a mere moral task.? 

The Command of Duty.—In behalf of duty it should 
be noted that the severity which has been so long associated 
with it is partly due to the accompanying creed by which 
it has been sustained, the rigidity of people who have in- 
euleated it, and the authority. with which it has been en- 
forced. Its authority should be that of the moral law 
which we respect because we recognize it as the basic 
principle of integrity of-character, of the virtues; not that 
of a given code, not even the Ten Commandments. No 
code is complete or final. More is expected of us than our 
mere duty. The Sermon on the Mount, with its emphasis 
on giving, is recognized as surpassing the Commandments. 
Even though faithfully kept to all intents and purposes, 
there is a something more. So Jesus said to the model 
young man: ‘‘Go sell all thou hast and give to the poor.’’ 
Duty is indeed far more than all external observances, 
however scrupulous. Outward observance may be chiefly 
a form. Forms long survive the life which gave them birth. 
We do many things as ostensible duties merely because we 
have done them. With great reason therefore Jesus re- 
duced the commandments to two, both of which are in- 
ternal, love being the test. Again, the Golden Rule is 
simpler than the Ten Commandments: it implies the under- 
lying unity which, when thought out, we recognize as the 
moral law. The higher command, in brief, is to forget self 
in love to God and man. 

Love and Duty.—It is not necessary then to dwell on 
the severities involved in the idea of duty. Love as well 
as duty involves tied-in-ness. Yet we think rather of the 
joy it brings. We do not feel or manifest love at its best 
from a sense of duty. We do not love because we ought. 
But because we love we do that for others which taken by 
itself might be regarded as a duty. We wish others to do 
whatever is done for us in time of need willingly rather 

2 Rashdall, op. cit., Vol. II, p. 43. 





Duty and Responsibility 193 


than because they ought. Duty might indeed lead one to 
be no respecter of persons. But the duties of parents to 
children, of children to parents, husband to wife, and wife 
to husband necessarily involve special regard for persons. 
Patriotism if a duty at all is toward one country in par- 
ticular. Goodness must be specific. Usually it is love 
which makes it so. When we love, duty is assimilated and 
almost forgotten. Duty to humanity might become utterly 
vague. Particular needs call our altruism into expression. 
And so in modern terms the idea of ‘‘service’’ has with 
many entirely taken the place of duty. A moral act should 
befit its particular relationships in the given situation. 
What we need is knowledge of the situation, and wisdom in 
meeting the special call. There is likely to be fitness be- 
tween what we have to give and what is needed. The ser- 
vice-motive may well include all that was once put under 
the head of duty. 

Nevertheless, the idea of duty, seen in relation to the 
ought and to loyalty holds important meanings for us. 
Since duty is what I owe, it implies ‘‘the felt inner bind- 
ing’”’ of Martineau’s phraseology, what I ought to do, and 
acceptance of or adaptation to some social usage whereby 
I carry my duty into expression. Hence the term is most 
intimately related to all terms that are central to the moral 
life. In Janet’s statement of the situation, duty consists 
in doing good, good in doing one’s duty. As Ten Broeke 
puts the matter, a specific duty is what is owed to the ideal 
of the highest good in a particular situation, while virtue 
is the habitual response to what is thus required.* A pres- 
ent duty usually represents a state of the self to be realized. 
Hence the effort required, the sternness which sometimes 
enters in, also the painful character of some duties. And 
so a duty may be regarded as a form of ‘‘the conative life- 
impulse seeking fulfillment,’’ as Ten Broeke calls it. Wes- 
termarek holds that first of all duty expresses a striving. 
‘““When I feel that I ought to do a thing, I experience an 
impulse to do it, even though some opposite impulse may 


3 Op. cit., p. vi. 
4Op. ctt., p. 71. 


194 Goodness and Freedom 

finally determine my action.’?> Hence when we say to 
another, ‘‘ You ought to do this,’’ there is implied a purpose 
to influence his action in a certain direction. But duty 
has its imperative aspect in addition to the striving, or 
the effort to induce action; and so duty implies a negation, 
the possibility of transgression: the ought is prohibitive, 
implies what will happen if duty is not done. 

If we do our duty only we may not be as fully produc- 
tive as when the chief incentive is self-realization. Ten 
Broeke suggests that ‘‘every sense of duty is also a confes- 
sion of ignorance, for it implies the new and untried.’’ ° 
So too the sense of duty is ‘‘always a mark of limitations. 
God has no duties, but the free active possession of the 
perfect good.’’ Duty is also limited because the individ- 
ual’s duties grow out of his relation to environment in a 
way in which no one else is obligated. This is usually re- 
ferred to as ‘‘my station and its duties.’’? 

Duty for Duty’s Sake.—Because of this call of duty 
to meet a specific situation, objection is raised to the idea 
of ‘‘duty for duty’s sake.’’ This would be too formal and 
general, and in the end false and self-contradictory.2 The 
moral being does not exist in isolation. Duty would then 
be abstract, subjective, and a part of ourselves would be 
left out. Morality is always relative to situations in which 
there is opportunity for duty. And so Bradley defines 
duty in terms of the relation of the particular to the uni- 
versal; just my will in its affirmative relation.® 

Duty refers both to the far-off goal of goodness toward 
which we strive, which seems at times unattainable, and to 
the immediate situation, plainly imperfect and demanding 
that something be done.t° Hence we commit ourselves to 
various courses of action, as means to the great end and 
because of immediate good to be done; and having com- 
mitted ourselves we realize that it is incumbent upon us 

5 Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas, Vol. I, p. 134. 

6 Op. cit., p. 74. 

7 See Mackenzie, op. cit., p. 346. 

8 See F. H. Bradley, Ethical Studies, Chap. IV. 


9 Op. cit., p. 187. 
10 See Dewey and Tufts, Ethics, Chap. XVII. 


Duty and Responsibility 195 


to remain constant. So it comes about that the hardest 
phase of duty is what we did not foresee, is what we are 
called on to do which we did not anticipate or will. By 
these socially established courses of action to which we 
become committed we are ‘‘tied-in’’ with people and the 
trend of events, bound by conditions which we would never 
voluntarily have chosen. The duties of the soldier who 
enlists in times of peace without anticipating war or know- 
ing what it means are typical. Numerous social relation- 
ships involve contracts to be fulfilled, promises to be kept. 
And so duties are tied-in with one another endlessly and 
we find ourselves passing from duty to duty throughout 
our days and months and years. On the other hand there 
is a sense in which it is a sound principle to do our duty as 
an end in itself, namely, as yielding moral value apart 
from any reward, and not as mere means to an end. There 
are acts done for their own sake, deeds of the Good Samar- 
itan, for instance, which are complete. We signalize deeds 
of valor and service as of great worth in themselves, what- 
ever values they may also contribute in other connections, 
what ever part they may play in the self-realization of the 
one who does them. We owe it to society both to fulfill our 
regular obligations, meeting the new duties as they occur, 
and working for the unity of virtue; and to contribute 
those deeds from time to time which lie outside of our 
special field and may perchance exceed most other deeds 
in moral value. 

The Conflict of Duties—Is conflict possible? Not 
within duty as a principle. In the ease of conflict between 
values or various calls to duty, it is my duty to choose one 
alternative, and so I may be able to do my duty despite 
this complexity. But duty involves deeds to be done, these 
are manifold and call for adjustment to social situations 
in relation to family, town, state, nation, profession, and 
to organizations or groups whose standards may conflict. 
Ordinarily these various duties may be compatible, so that 
I can serve my family, my neighborhood, and all else by 
the same modes of conduct. But war may break out and 
I may be under compulsion to serve. What is my duty as 


196 Goodness and Freedom 


regards patriotism in contrast with inter-nationalism? To 
what level shall I assign love of my fellowmen? When 
asked to fight, the question of the value of a human life 
arises in contrast with the end to be attained by fight- 
ing.4 It is not an easy matter to see what is value and 
what is means. The unity of the good is not a given 
entity to be applied as one might a measuring-rod. It 
must be attained by thought, it must be created. As the 
unity is a need for action, so it must emerge as an attain- 
ment through action. New occasions suggest new duties. 
Fresh emergencies send us back to reconsider the whole 
situation anew. Hencewe are led to ask, What values are 
really worth struggling for, and how shall we make effort 
in their behalf? When forced into fighting a man may 
find himself compelled to surrender for the time being, so 
far as external conduct is concerned, everything that con- 
stitutes the higher values; hence the ends that are primary 
become lowest in the scale. Half-forgotten values may rise 
into activity, notably blood-ties, courage, loyalty to dis- 
agreeable duty. But again the values for which vigorous 
action is taken may unexpectedly afford opportunity for 
the expression of self-control, patience, endurance, self- 
sacrifice, heroism. Thus the least favorable external con- 
ditions may be accompanied by exceptionally productive 
moral and spiritual states. The more objective and com- 
pelling the external situation, as in the case of a soldier 
exposed to greatest perils in the front-lines when volun- 
teers for an act requiring utmost courage are called for, 
the more impressively the individual may rise to meet it. 
Opportunities for freedom of action may be reduced to 
the minimum, yet the opportunity for moral choice may 
be at its maximum. 

Loyalty._-Sometimes the problem of choice between 
opportunities taken to mean a conflict of duties is stated 
with reference to various loyalties and in terms of Royce’s 
conception of loyalty one is advised to choose that cause 
or movement which will most greatly increase loyalty in 


11 Cf. B. M. Laing, A Study tn Moral Problems, p. 128. 


Duty and Responsibility 197 


the world.!? Loyalty is surely higher than partisanship, 
and it is inseparable from duty. But loyalty for the sake 
of loyalty is too general, and it is open to all the objections 
to Kant’s ethics. Loyalty is not so profound or central as 
duty. I may indeed do my part toward increasing it as 
a value in the world, but when it becomes a question of 
the cause for which I am to be loyal I find that I must 
be as nearly fundamental in my thinking as possible. Loy- 
alty may be exacted of me when I am unable to give it. 
I may be one of those men who put love of truth above 
demands for fidelity to an institution. I may put love 
of goodness above loyalty to a party in political power. 
I may put love of my fellowmen above loyalty to country 
as conventional patriotism defines it. I may, in short, be 
disinterested. It is my duty then to weigh the several 
alternatives put before me, to estimate them in the light 
of their relative worth as contributory to the greater or 
lesser good. 

By what deeds can I foster the greater good? Sometimes 
I am ealled on to display loyalty toward a person, what- 
ever he has done, and such loyalty may coincide with the 
greater good. But again I may in the end contribute most 
to the welfare of society by disinterestedly manifesting my 
loyalty to truth, or the right. Loyalty must then be de- 
fined in terms of the values which we find near the top 
of our scale.1* Indeed, Everett maintains that value is 
the basal conception of ethics, more nearly final than duty, 
law, or right.14 Seth holds that the claims of individuals 
conflict, the claims of persons never.® To sustain this 
thesis would be to distinguish in favor of that which is 
for the best good of a person, personality being under- 
stood in terms of rational selfhood. In religious terms this 
would be fidelity to the soul or spirit in contrast with the 
individual as externally known. And it is commonly rec- 


12 J. Royce, The Philosophy of Loyalty, 1908: summarized and 


discussed in Psychology in Theory and Application, Dresser, Chap. 
XXIX. 


13 Cf. Everett, Moral Values, p. 46. 
14 Ibid., p. 7. 
15 Ethical Principles, p. 212. 


198 Goodness and Freedom 


ognized that the self in this guise is a supreme value. 
Obviously there is a difference then between working for 
loyalty as conventional society may regard individuals and 
working for those goods which contribute to the develop- 
ment of character. We like to think that in the total 
working out of things what is for the best good of one 
will be for the best good of all others who are concerned, 
hence we conclude once more that there is no conflict within 
duty itself. 

The Ought.—The ought is implied in duty: duties are 
what I ought to contribute for society’s good. Ought then 
is another expression for the moral law, with its impera- 
tives, which is over me. Moral consciousness makes me 
aware that there is a discrepancy between what zs and 
what ought to be, and the ought involves judgments in 
terms of norms or values. The ought is to have practical 
consequences. An obligation is upon us not only to choose 
a type of conduct which we judge to be better but to take 
persistent steps toward its actualization. Something ought 
‘‘to be done about it,’’ we say, and we should work to- 
gether to do it. We are all implicated. The end is social. 
We need a platform of activities, we need leaders and co- 
workers. The ought is not static or conservative, but has 
dynamic value. 

The Ought as a Standard.—The ought has been char- 
acterized as ‘‘a rule of human relationship and conduct 
acknowledged to be unconditioned and universally valid.’’ 
But this refers to its form, to the moral law; the ought 
also has content. The ought may be regarded as a uniform 
rule for similar cases, as a command or imperative, and so 
asa criterion. Thus I may say, ‘‘I ought to obey the law.’’ 
But inquiring into the meanings of this obligation I note 
that it applies to (1) my conduct in relation to the civil 
law, imposed by the community, for the common safety 
and welfare, that is, its validity rests on external power 
and authority, the law is made and executed by the state, 
and punishment will follow infractions; and (2) my re- 
lationship to the moral law, the validity of which rests 
on inner grounds; the law is appealed to because it is right 


Duty and Responsibility 199 


in itself, is universal; and the result of an infraction is 
not outer punishment but consciousness of unworthiness. 
I accept the obligation of the civil law as contributory to 
my conduct as a moral being. I accept the obligation to 
the moral law by realizing that it stands above inclination, 
utility, custom, prudence, what is expedient. 

The ought then is a standard for inner activity of will, 
for motive and intention. It involves my integrity as a 
person. It yields a strength not equaled by what I merely 
believe or feel. The ‘‘I ought’’ involves the ‘‘I ean,’’ that 
is, the conviction that as a moral agent I am free to take 
steps toward what I hold to be right: the self has the power 
to do what the ought impels. Conscience condemns me if 
I do not do what I ought, and so makes me aware of what 
I might have done. Involuntarily I revert to my failure. 
The ought holds me up to the standard of moral success. 
The alternative would be moral lapse, inner self-division, 
dissipation. 

As a Basis of Judgment.—But while I thus insistently 
tend to judge my own conduct by the standard of per- 
fection, I should be careful in my judgments of others, 
lest I hold them up to what I personally say they ought 
to have done without knowing all the besetting conditions. 
It is far too easy to condemn people for what we hold 
they ought to do, on the ground that as members of pres- 
ent society there are certain principles which they must 
have been taught, say by the Church, and that therefore 
they should not do thus and so. ‘‘I ought’’ does not mean 
“I can’’ without regard to the conditions of (1) my na- 
ture as a moral being in process, with inclinations to 
conquer, emotions and passions to sublimate, habits to 
change, volitions to become more effective; and (2) society, 
also in process, with forces that need to be better under- 
stood and more wisely controlled. It has been said that 
‘‘to know all is to forgive all.’’ I ought to be perfect even 
as my Father in heaven is perfect, but this is an ideal. 

The Creative Ought.—The ought may appear to be 
simply a stern obligation over us, holding the self and 
society up to duty. But, we repeat, the moral ideal calls 


200 Goodness and Freedom 


for satisfaction. There is reason in the fact that we are 
not content with anything less. The fullness of life is 
what in reality or deepest truth we will to realize. I pass 
then from the thought that I ought to do my duty to the 
activity of giving my best, in the joy of doing, or achiev- 
ing. In all creative work there is satisfaction, and while 
doing it we are likely to forget processes, conditions, time, 
even difficulties, in our endeavor to do the work as well 
as it ean be done. There is no reason why this creativity 
should not enter into and transform the ought, so that there 
shall be ‘‘full measure, running over.”’ 

What I ought to do ds not necessarily what is hardest 
and least pleasant, although there may be days, even weeks 
or months when I experience difficulty in keeping at my 
chosen work. The reaction against Puritanism has taught 
us to look beyond processes and conditions to an ideal able 
to lift our consciousness above means to ends. What I 
owe to others is what I am readily able to do with satis- 
faction. Self-development and duty coincide to the extent 
that I am absorbed in my work. If I limit and restrain 
myself by a severe sense of duty, or if I am greatly con- 
strained by society, this suppression will interfere with 
my moral efficiency. It by no means follows that because 
society puts constraints upon us which involve interior 
repressions that therefore morality is a burden. The prob- 
lem is to understand and utilize all elements of our nature, 
including the passions and self-centering emotions. 

Duty as Adjustment.—Summarizing then we note that 
duty for duty’s sake is an insufficient motive, as in the case 
of loyalty to loyalty: it leads to formalism or generality, 
and is likely to overlook the spontaneities and satisfactions 
which yield specific content and incentives. To be an ef- 
fective moral being one must not only will to do right 
but will something of benefit to humanity amidst present 
conditions. It is essential to acknowledge various inclina- 
tions, or springs of action; and to aim at various ends. 
In actual practice there are conflicts between matters urged 
upon us in the name of duty, opportunities presented by 
our own consciousness. There is need of a criterion, a 


Duty and Responsibility 201 


scale of values. Duty in general is to be expressed con- 
eretely through what is wise under the conditions, The 
good will is seen at its best when prompted by the ser- 
vice-motive. It may be connected at large with God and 
humanity, but it pertains directly to the welfare of society 
close at hand, to the family in a specific way. It may be 
creative. At its best it is essentially productive, not inhibi- 
tory ; it leads to the fullness of life. 

Right and Wrong.—We find successive changes coming 
about in our views of right and wrong in relation to duty. 
As children, little concerned with right or wrong save so 
far as we are commanded to do this and abstain from that, 
we are apt to regard a deed as negligible if our conduct 
evades detection. So too in later life many people look 
upon civil regulations as negligible if there is fair chance 
of evading them, and the effort of our law-breaking gener- 
ation is to ‘‘get by.’’ Even in the legal world there is 
sometimes a strange disregard for right and wrong as 
ethically defined. A judge in a Chicago court who sen- 
tenced two young men to life-imprisonment for committing 
murder, in an instance where no one in the community 
doubted the guilt of the culprits, made the amazing state- 
ment that these youths had ‘‘never before done a wrong 
act in their whole life,’’ that is, they had never been caught 
and arrested. But as evasive as our early conduct and 
uncritical thought may be, most of us eventually grow 
into the realization that a deed is wrong ‘‘because con- 
science tells us so.’’ Still later we come to see that the deed 
was wrong in itself, and we find that whatever the conflict 
of opinion concerning social deeds in general some deeds are 
judged to be wrong by moralists of all schools, for instance, 
cruelty, falsehood, intemperance. In contrast, other deeds 
are ‘‘right,’’ straight (rectus) and we hear about men 
who have decided to ‘‘go straight’? whose previous ways 
were ‘‘erooked.’?’ What is right or straight is according 
to rule, and eventually rectitude or righteousness becomes 
synonymous with justice itself as the culminating virtue, 
as in Plato’s seale. Arriving at a conception of duty, we 
see that the right in its ultimate sense is identical with it, 


202 Goodness and Freedom 


while the rights or privileges accorded us enable us to 
attend to our several duties. 

Sin, which we are to consider in the next chapter, 1s 
typical of what we call wrong-doing, although we do not 
always connect what is wrong with any special conception 
of sin. We say that sin is ‘‘bad,’’ a term applied to both 
eonduct and character. Conduct is judged to be wrong 
with reference to both civil and moral law. The indi- 
vidual is commanded to do what is right, to obey the law; 
and one deed is right in relations inherent to it, where 
many other possible deeds would be wrong. ‘‘Right has 
no comparative.’? A duty is said to be either fulfilled 
or not. If not fulfilled the conduct is said to be wrong, and 
the wrong deed is traced to character. But while we say 
that character may be bad we do not command a person 
to have a certain character. We say he ‘‘ought’’ to have 
acted otherwise, he possesses traits which should have been 
overcome, and his bettered conduct would have started hin 
in the direction of a desirable character. There are de- 
erees of wrong-doing, as there are degrees of goodness. 
But we adhere to the right as ultimate standard, and ex- 
pect a person to become of such a character that he will 
seek and obey the right as he would conform to a mathe- 
matical principle, which admits of no degrees of rightness. 
Thus we say it is perfectly right to pay a debt, to keep 
a promise, abstain from killing and robbing. The opposite 
ir. each case would be wrong. We do not praise a man for 
doing what is right in these eases. Praise and blame enter 
where there are degrees of goodness and wrongness. We 
hold that obedience to a moral code is right, while a breach 
1s wrong. 

Good and Bad.—Bad is best understood in contrast 
with good as membership in an organism. There is always 
something worth doing in behalf of self-realization; it is 
right to be efficiently active, to produce. By contrast with 
such activity, idleness, for example, is bad because it results 
in disorganization, if not degeneration; it is wrong because 
it results in failure, interferes with duty. Idleness tends 
to run into laziness. Inertia is strong in human nature 


Duty and Responsibility 203 


any way. In itself idleness is faithlessness. It is social- 
ized in the ease of the tramp, who becomes a virtual enemy 
to society. A tendency or condition is bad then which 
interferes with the codperative life of moral beings, it is 
bad in relation. When a bad tendency is carried further 
we call it evil, as in the case of the consequences of lazi- 
ness. A thing or tendency is evil which not only partly 
interferes, as in idleness, but which puts its forces against 
the factors which make for goodness. It does not merely 
imply imperfection but isolation, internal disorganization ; 
for example, in the case of wrong-doers who, in a city, 
gamble, and persuade the police to enter into league with 
them, and who thus become a group set against the wel- 
fare of the body politic. A city employee who works for 
his own interest, who steals, deceives, and fails to perform 
his function, is a typical instance. Under the term 
‘‘oraft’’ much that is wrong in city governments is now 
briefly classified, and the term ‘‘corruption’’ readily sug- 
gests the results in the civie organism. 

Responsibility —There is so much current evasiveness 
regarding responsibility that it is difficult to approach the 
matter from the point of view of occurrences recorded day 
by day. In a popular sense, a person is responsible under 
certain conditions, and an effort is made to limit his 
accountability accordingly. One must be careful not to 
admit responsibility in case of an automobile accident, be- 
cause this is a question for the claim agent in one’s liabil- 
ity insurance company, although a man may believe him- 
self morally at fault. Responsibility is often placed in a 
superficial way, because it is not customary to probe deeply 
and avoid all appearance of shirking. Readers of the 
press follow with eager interest a trial in court in which 
extenuating circumstances are being found, for instance, 
in the case of a murder by two young men of another young 
man where the crime is said to be ‘‘unique,’’ namely, for 
the sake of a thrill. The youths having pleaded guilty, 
insanity not being alleged, the question then is: were these 
murderers ‘‘morally abnormal, as distinguished from in- 
sane, in a degree that rendered them not responsible for 


204 Goodness and Freedom 


their actions’’? The ground for hearing evidence in such 
a case at all is said to lie in ‘‘a concession which to many 
lawyers must seem dubious, but which may be justified 
by the consideration that the whole legal theory as to erim- 
inal responsibility is nowadays in a highly uncertain state.’’ 
In effect, the whole procedure may have been to secure a 
mitigation of sentence. Meanwhile, the culprits, whose 
guilt no one questioned, were reported in the case in ques- 
tion, to have adopted the attitude of amused spectators, 
an attitude calculated to bear out the theory of ‘‘a com- 
plete absence of moral sense in them . . . consistent with 
their self-centered egoism’’; for they had declared that 
they believed in no God and recognized no law but the 
urge of their own appetites and desires, although they did 
believe in ‘‘the power of money to save them from the 
seaffold and plainly said so.’’1® Such a ease is apt to con- 
firm the multitude in the notion that accountability de- 
pends on one’s power to evade responsibility by the aid of 
money. 

Moral Responsibility—On the other hand readers of 
the press are quick enough in their decisions as to moral 
responsibility, and while ‘‘the vulgar notion of responsi- 
bility,’’ as Bradley calls it, offers no real explanation, it 
forcefully emphasizes crucial points.17 A man is respon- 
sible for what he has done or left undone for which he may 
be judged in the court of conscience imagined as a judge, 
divine or human, external or internal, this moral tribunal 
having a right over him. A man must answer, if called 
on, for all his deeds. He can disown none of his acts, 
nothing which in his heart or his will has ever been suf- 
fered to come into being. This implies self-sameness: I 
must be the very same person to whom the deed belonged. 
The deed, issuing from my will, must have been mine; I 
must have had a minimum of intelligence, so that, as re- 
sponsible, I can be looked on as a moral agent: for where 
I am forced there I do nothing. In brief, the deed is at- 
tributable to me as possessing a certain character. It is 


16 From editorial comments in the English press, 
17 F, H. Bradley, op. cit., Chap. I. 


Duty and Responsibility 205 


impossible to go behind this character and fix the blame 
on some one else, for only when a man is alienated from 
himself (insanity) are a man’s acts not his own.1® Thus 
the matter is reduced to the psycho-physical causal rela- 
tions as found in daily life.t° It would be evasive to try 
to make out that the mere cause is responsible for its 
effect, as when a man happens to disturb us because he is 
the bearer of bad news. It is the causal uniqueness that is 
the real consideration: man is conscious that in his re- 
sponsible activity he introduces something new into his 
surroundings which would not be possible without that 
activity. Hence, although a man is free to act, he must 
stand the consequences, disagreeable as well as pleasant.?° 
Man becomes a responsible person socially by his relation- 
ships to the community which affords him an opportunity 
to direct his desires and make his plans. Hence one who 
is aware of these relationships will hold himself respon- 
sible for the consequences of his acts, without waiting to 
be held liable by others. 

Accountability —To this position objection is some- 
times made by the individual that he is simply what God 
or nature made him, and God or nature is at fault if he 
did not turn out well. He did not choose his native en- 
dowments, his parents, or the social group into which he 
was born and in which he was reared, or even his char- 
acter as a product of hereditary dispositions and environ- 
ment. Why then should blame be put upon him? But 
our moral judgments turn, not upon a man’s origin, but 
on what he is, on what he now does, granted the character 
he has become.” We accept it as no excuse that man 
judged as worthless and degenerate comes from a family 
that has been profligate for generations. The individual 
is accountable although we also judge the collective body 
which molded him, his family, his social class, his nation, 
and humanity at large. The individual remains ‘‘the es- 

18 Mackenzie, Manual of Ethics, p. 407. 

19 W. Windelband, An Introduction to Philosophy, tr. by J. McCabe, 
1921, p. 249. 


20 Dewey and Tufts, Hthics, p. 436. 
21 Cf. Paulsen, op. cit., p. 461. 


206 Goodness and Freedom 


sential precondition of the wider judgment.’’?? We are 
responsible for good, as well as accountable for evil. We 
ean rightfully be accused. And so our analysis drives us 
back to moral obligation as the basis of judgment. Our 
moral consciousness admits of no evasiveness, however 
many qualifying conditions may enter into our social or 
environmental relationships. We do not escape from our 
sense of responsibility by the conclusion that it is relative. 
Indeed, awareness of responsibility increases with relative 
knowledge. There may appear to be no ultimate or satis- 
factory solution of the problem. We may be unable to 
determine just how far-we are responsible. But this inde- 
terminateness yields no valid excuse. And a study of the 
problem of freedom affords further evidence of the per- 
sistence of this sense of responsibility. Meanwhile, we 
realize plainly enough that responsibility is essential to 
the moral order. 

The existence of shame, remorse, guilt is evidence in 
point. A man may try to put aside the sufferings of guilt, 
with its remorse and humiliation, its cowardice and fore- 
bodings, by what Martineau ealls ‘‘spasms of self-rallying, 
or artifices of self-forgetfulness,’’ yet he feels himself in 
the presence of elements which are not placed at his dis- 
posal, doubly incurred in the attempt to shun them.2? One 
is unable in these days to fall back on the notion that guilt 
is hereditary, for, as critics of this view have pointed out, 
there would then need to be a unitary power of sin per- 
sisting through all the generations. Sin ig guilt only in 
so far as it is subjective, that is, self-contradiction on the 
part of the person who is himself conscious of it. Fellow- 
ship of humanity in guilt does not excuse the one who has 
committed a deed which forces guilt home to the intimacies 
of self-struggle. There may be gradations of sin and guilt, 
but it is by participation in the series that one comes to 
feel his own shame and remorse, his own accountability, 
whatever he may say about those who failed to instruct 
and aid him as they should. By guilt I am made pain- 


22 Ibid., p. 463. 
28 Types of Ethical Theory, Vol. II, p. 112. 


Duty and Responsibility 207 


fully aware of the fact that I have not been true to the 
promptings of my better self. I realize that not only could 
I have acted differently but that I ought to have acted 
ctherwise. JI am cast down. I am so far less than myself. 
I must then have a way of thinking about sin and evil, 
and having adopted this point of view, my chief concern 
will be: social self-realization. For, in the last analysis, 
cur theory on all these points must be restated in affirma- 
tive terms. 


REFERENCES 


Ten Broexke, J., The Moral Life and Religion, Chap. V. 

Brapiry, F. H., Ethical Studies, Chap. I (responsibility) ; 
Chap. IV. 

MACKENZIE, J. S., Manual of Ethics, Bk. III, Chap. ITI. 

DEWEY AND Turts, Ethics, Chap. XVII. 

Royce, J., The Philosophy of Loyalty, 1908. 

Everett, W. G., Moral Values, Chap. IX. 

SeTu, J.. Hthical Principles, p. 212. 

PAULSEN, F., System of Ethics, trans., Bk. II, Chap. V. 

GizycK!1, G., An Introduction to the Study of Ethics, adapted by 
S. Coit, 1891, Chap. VII (responsibility). 

McConne tt, R. M., The Duty of Altruism, 1910, Chap. I. 

RasHpDALL, H., The Theory of Good and Evil, Vol. I, Chap. V. 

JANET, P., The Theory of Morals, trans., p. 137. 


CHAPTER XIV 
SIN AND EVIL 


Theories of Evil—The question of the nature of sin and 
evil lies outside of the ethical field in so far as its solution 
appears to turn upon a system of theology accepted on 
authority. A theological view of the redemption of man 
is apt to evolve a conception of man’s fall, hence a theory 
of the original appearance of evil. There is a certain 
evasiveness in such a view, which throws the matter further 
and further back. So too there was evasiveness as long 
as man’s temptations were attributed to an evil being or 
eroup of evil beings or a force operating outside of him- 
self, or independently of present society. A theological 
view is apt to turn upon acceptance of a plan for the for- 
giveness of sins involving non-ethical reasoning. So too 
in the case of the view that matter belongs to the realm 
of darkness, as in Neo-Platonism; it was easy to infer that 
the flesh was the source of evil, and so bodily impulses 
were condemned unheard. While Augustinianism pre- 
vailed, it was no less readily assumed that things that had 
been called evil existed only with God’s permission: be- 
cause He could cause good to come out of them. The situ- 
ation was greatly simplified when questions of origin were 
separated from theories of redemption, when the problem 
of evil was distinguished from belief in a creed. There 
was also a change for the better with the rejection of all 
views that attributed evil to a given element, impulse, or 
to an unregenerate will, a term as purely general as the 
term ‘‘fiesh,’’ opposed to spirit. Interest then began to 
turn upon survivals and misuses of heredity, akin to ani- 
mal life, subject to intensification, but not in itself to be 
judged without careful analysis. 

208 


Sin and Evil 209 


The ethical view of man’s unregeneracy involves fewer 
assumptions, and leaves the matter of the remaking of 
human nature open to various possibilities. The present 
existence of evil and its consequences in terms of sin, vice, 
and crime is the fact with which ethics is concerned, what- 
ever the first origin. Granted the fact, there is need for 
precise description, definition, and a theory of the signifi- 
cance of evil in moral experience. The current description 
is likely to imply a conception of human development from 
a simpler mode of life to the complexities of modern civ- 
ilization. A merely evolutionary conception of the origin 
of baser traits akin to those of brutes would not carry far, 
however, since we are chiefly concerned with the subtler 
evils of the latest phases of civilization. Hence it is a 
question of psychological analysis rather than one of gen- 
esis, and to psychology we look for increasing knowledge 
of human nature in its present social types. 

Evil in General—tEvil is variously defined by narrow- 
ing the question, as our interests become specifically ethi- 
eal. In a metaphysical or very general sense, evil has been 
looked. on as essential limitation, due to the fact that any 
being less than God is necessarily imperfect. According 
to Leibnitz, created beings derive their perfections from the 
influence of God, but their imperfections come from their 
own nature, which is incapable of being without limits.? 
In the physical sense of the word, evil is seen in the 
struggle of animals, preying on one another by brute force; 
in calamities such as the great floods which occur from 
time to time in China, the terrible earthquakes which have 
visited Mediterranean countries and Japan, the volcanic 
explosions which have destroyed whole cities; the destruc- 
tion of crops by pests, and drouth; the spread of plagues 
and famines. Mental and physical suffering, whatever the 
cause, 1s regarded as an evil, and the infliction of pain is 
ordinarily the most direct result of evil attributed to 
human agency. The terrible consequences of war, with the 
suffering of non-combatants as well as of the soldiery, are 
typical of such evil. The sufferings of the world have 

1 The Monadology, Sec. 42, tr. by R. Latta, 1898. 


210 Goodness and Freedom 


increased as war has become jhore barbarous, until, in the 
World War, with its submarines, bombing planes, and 
poison gas, the evils became terrible beyond description. 

There is plainly a difference between suffering of this 
sort which we condemn outright, and pain arising within 
the organism in bodily disturbances where the sensation 
is a sign of nature’s remedial forees. Pain in its initial 
stage may indicate excess due to prolonged work, nervous 
Strain, or over-eating, and in this respect pain if rightly 
explained is a clue to bodily well-being. So too when in- 
crease of pain implies failure on man’s part to respond 
to the first warning symptoms: naturally pain is intensi- 
fied with greater imprudence. There would seem to be no 
other way to bring man to his senses than by increase of 
painful results as evidences of his failure to respond to 
nature’s promptings. So long as the results are confined 
to the person’s own organism the consequences of riotous 
living may still be looked upon in the light of lessons they 
teach. But when the suffering of others is involved, and 
when through heredity children and successive generations 
are affected, such consequences are condemned outright as 
evil. Hereditary weaknesses and feeble-mindedness in its 
various forms, are remote results for which the sufferers 
themselves are not responsible. Instead of condemning 
people outright for these evils, the tendency today is to 
trace the evils to their sources, for instance, in the case 
of whole families of degenerates descended from a single 
pair. Then it is a question of specific evils, perhaps drunk- 
enness and lust, as immediate causes. So too in the case of 
diseases, notably contagious and more serious diseases so 
long regarded as mysteries, the effort of science is to get 
at the root of the malady, the particular germ or the be- 
setting condition; instead of attributing the disease to the 
existence of evil in general. It may well be that some 
evils from which we suffer are due to the animal existence 
which we share with the higher animals but which in man 
may become more brutal than in the brutes. 

Moral Evil— What we mean when we attribute evil 
to conscious human agency is moral evil, a deed and its 


Sin and Evil 211 


consequences which might have been avoided by those 
directly responsible for it. Moral evil may be said to in- 
volve the whole race, for when we begin to trace results 
back to a pair of degenerates whose evil life led to the most 
baneful results in whole families through generations, we 
find the investigation leading farther back till we come 
to the earliest evils of our civilization. But there is no 
advantage in mere generalizations. Headway has been 
made in these scientific times by separating evil into its 
types and limiting the inquiry to specific instances. In 
the case of war, for instance, effort is made to fix respon- 
sibility upon rulers and their ministers, or diplomats and 
politicians working in secret who gave the word to mobilize. 
Other nations, through concealed ambitions and rivalries, 
may be responsible too, but the decision may have rested 
with one nation, and in that one nation with the militaris- 
tic party or ambitious potentate. Our judgment concern- 
ing responsibility for war is likely to become the more 
severe if as a result of recent discussion we have come to 
regard war as an evil from first to last. War, long eulo- 
gized because of the good that comes out of it, the heroism, 
the self-sacrifice, the increase of patriotism, has more fre- 
quently been called murder since the World War. Efforts 
have accordingly been made to outlaw it without waiting 
for mastery over the allied evils of which it is in part an 
expression. 

The Social Evil.—The nature of evil becomes clearer 
when we consider it in relation to a single deed wrought 
by one person, and undertake not only to establish guilt, 
as in the case of murder, but to determine the motive and 
analyze this in detail, tracing the motive to its sources. 
Moral evil then is seen in a deed and its results attributable 
to a person intelligibly regarded as responsible. Without 
the decisive activity in question, its motive, with the act 
of choice which made the motive effective, the deed would 
not have happened. So too we trace consequences of “‘the 
social evil’’ to inner activities involving real alternatives. 
In the presence of passions which might have been curbed 
or overcome, the responsible person is guilty of the initial 


212 Goodness and Freedom 


deed which led to the degradation or enslavement of 
others. 

Society sometimes passes judgment upon the innocent 
girl who is led astray by a man who makes her the victim 
of kis passions, and so society has a way of slurring over 
the social evil. The situation is usually more difficult for 
the woman. The question of a double moral standard com- 
plicates the issues. But whatever the effort to cloud the 
issue, the fact is not altered that he is responsible who 
knew life’s typical situation in this field, who should as a 
member of a moral community have abstained. Although 
society is in a way responsible for crimes due to passion, 
individuals are originally responsible. Here again our 
changing views lead us to trace causes more directly to 
their sources than when a double standard of morals ruled 
without question. 

By evil in bare simplicity we mean a deed done by an 
individual who, in the face of a higher alternative, chose 
the lower and did what implicated his moral nature and 
brought consequences which could have been prevented. 
The innocent suffer with the guilty, and so we endeavor 
all the more insistently to trace the deed to the one who 
wrought it. We no longer attribute evil to the frailties 
of human nature in general. Nor do we trace certain evils 
to the passions of the flesh, as if the body acted independ- 
ently. We insist that account be taken of all the factors 
that participate in man’s conduct, especially those activ- 
ities which distinguish him from the brutes and give powers 
of control. Evils may begin with behavior which in origin 
is instinctive, as we find ourselves in process of acting 
according to customs which we have taken on merely be- 
cause they existed. But it does not follow that the orig- 
inal behavior was evil. . 

Crime.—By crime is meant a breach of civil law, a 
deed for which responsibility may be determined so that a 
penalty can be attached. A deed not recognized under 
the law as a crime may be worse morally speaking. The 
term crime is often used as a synonym for the worst evils, 
especially those of war, although these evils have never been 


Sin and Evil 213 


outlawed. Some of the most fiendish evils popularly called 
erimes against society are not recognized by the statute 
books. Fixed penalties do not necessarily show the nature 
or extent of the wrong done. We habitually speak of deeds 
as morally wrong in instances where occurrences techni- 
cally known as crimes are not judged as we believe they 
ought to be. Penalties are attached to crimes with a view 
to protecting society and reforming the individual. But 
a prisoner may emerge from confinement far more danger- 
ous than when he entered, and so crime may increase from 
more to more. A crime is a deed not to be understood 
apart from its ultimate connection with social groups in 
relation to which it is seen as evil. Effort is sometimes 
made to attribute crimes committed by young offenders to 
our educational system, or to explain them by the theory 
of evolution as misunderstood, as consequences of the pro- 
hibition amendment, as reactions from the World War, or 
as traceable to the film-play. But these alleged causes are 
expressions of the mode of social life we live, and that in 
turn is conditioned in various ways according to type and 
place, as in the slums. Waves of crime do not spring out 
of a single source. 

In sentencing four young men to be electrocuted, Jus- 
tice Cropsey, as quoted in the press, commenting on their 
age, said: ‘‘ Most of the criminals are boys and young men. 
To be exact, over eighty per cent of them are less than 
twenty-five years of age. If the people of Brooklyn ask 
why so many youths become criminals, I ean tell them. A 
dozen years of investigation and experience in these mat- 
ters have demonstrated that the vast majority of all youth- 
ful offenders committed crime because they had bad asso- 
ciates and were not under the proper influences in the 
years when boyhood was turning into manhood, between 
the ages of twelve and eighteen. That is the most impor- 
tant period in a boy’s life. Then his ideals are acquired, 
his character formed. This condition is a challenge to the 
manhood of our community. . . . Tens of thousands of 
boys are nightly on the streets looking for amusements, 
seeking adventure, yearning for companionship. Many of 


214 Goodness and Freedom 


them have no fathers, and the parents give little or no 
heed to the places their boys visit or the companions they 
choose.’ ? 

Our definition of crime will depend to some extent then 
on our view of its social origin and our solution of the 
problem of responsibility. A theory prevails that crime 
is due to a defect in the lower brain, affecting the emotional 
life. So a young criminal may have a high degree of in- 
telligence but no sympathy, no adequate sense of wrong; 
knowledge of right and wrong, but no feeling about it; 
no adequate basis for emotional life, and so no adequate 
social test. But this theory affords only a physiological 
explanation of facts to be ethically interpreted. 

The Reality of Evil—Part of our difficulty then is due 
to the fact that we need light on many issues at once; we 
are unable to say what degree of evil is to be attributed 
to a certain individual in a given case. There is plainly 
a difference between a delinquency which is chiefly a mis- 
fortune in the life of one whose parentage is offered as the 
explanation; between ‘‘long-distance sins’’—injuries done 
to people whom the wrong-doers never see and know— 
and wrong-doing as a direct injury to a man in his per- 
sonal life which can be surely traced to one guilty person. 
Evils run through the whole gamut from the old-jungle 
sins of the flesh—murder, lust, and theft—to the sins 
of pride, avarice, slander, and spiritual self-sufficiency, 
and so intimately related to social life as a whole that a 
tendency sometimes appears to classify evil as ‘‘unreal’’ 
because relative. Evil is surely real from any ethical 
point of view that has prevailed in the Western world. It 
is real as a brute fact of actual injury done, for instance, 
by the man who builds a fire-trap in aa people 1686 
their lives, who leaves dangerous machinery unguarded, 
and in rhe case of reckless drivers of automobiles. It has 
been called unreal in the sense that it is bound to be over- 
come, and the activities involved in it transmuted into 
good. But as now present it is real so far as effort is 
required to understand, master, and transform it. The 

2 Quoted in The Literary Digest, Mar. 22, 1924. 


Sin and Evil Q15 


evil deed remains a fact of history whatever good may be 
brought out of it. It does not follow that because good 
results may be brought out of it the deed was either 
unreal or that it was due to short-sightedness or mere 
social maladjustment. 

Vice.—Whatever the responsibility assigned to those 
who have gone before, the given evil is definable with 
regard to the personality suffering from or inflicting it. 
Thus vice is evil consciously entered into, maintained per- 
sonal evil involving self-indulgence of a sensuous kind, 
evil as a habit. It may arise through simple indulgences 
in eating, smoking, and drinking which in time becomes 
excessive, hence more sensuous. The vice may then be- 
ecme established, and may grow by what it feeds on, even- 
tually leading to crime. It is a fine point of distinction 
to determine when an indulgence which seems harmless in 
a relatively prudent life reaches the point of excess and 
becomes a vice. Here too the original behavior may be 
instinctive in origin, or may involve instincts wholly good 
in their proper places; hence the initial behavior may not 
be wrong. Some of the unfortunate beginnings may have 
been due to native promptings and imaginings which were 
not understood. Environmental influences may foster 
tendencies which might never have led to vice apart from 
undesirable company. The sensitive, easily influenced 
youth may not at first realize that he is less truly himself 
when with certain associates in whom vice is already mak- 
ing headway. We judge a man’s conduct more incisively 
when we see its consequences in his person after these have 
reached a crucial point, or when the results show in his 
conduct toward others. Vice is always attributed to the 
person, and whereas a criminal may be pardoned vice must 
be overcome by the individual. Society undertakes to pun- 
ish the criminal, but it is often at a loss to persuade a man 
to recognize his vices and overcome them. We excuse in 
ourselves what we condemn in another man as a vice. 
Some of us seem unwilling to conclude that a man should 
have no vices. It has been readily assumed that a man 
will ‘‘settle down’’ after a while, hence vices have been 


216 Goodness and Freedom 


excused as if the situation were not dangerous. Mean- 
while, the new age finds new approaches to the vices of 
the old, and vice spreads by imitation, by one sex emulating 
another, unmindful of what follows, and by confusion be- 
tween what is manly and what is wrong. 

Sin.—Sin is defined as conscious wrong-doing. Thus a 
vice which in origin was apparently harmless indulgence 
may reach a point where the person who fosters it becomes 
well aware of alternatives, and who possibly struggles for 
a while to overcome his vice. Persisting in his vice, how- 
ever, going counter to the promptings of his better nature, 
disregarding moral and spiritual standards, he sins, in his 
wrong conduct he involves others. Religious people say a 
sin is not only against one’s better self, against those who 
suffer from the individual’s wrong-doing, but is against 
God. ‘‘Against thee only have I sinned.’’ It is also said 
that sins ean be pardoned by God alone—if the sinner re- 
pents of his sin as confessedly a sin against God and wills 
to reform. Morally speaking there is no repentance save 
in a change which the individual voluntarily strives for, 
not because he anticipates forgiveness, not because he ex- 
pects God to overcome his sin on the ground that another 
has suffered for him and will wash his soul ‘‘white as 
snow,’’ but because he realizes that there is no atonement 
save what each makes by leading the better life. Moral 
atonement for sin is moral life. 

In contrast with the former tendency to revert to the 
idea of a Golden Age, and dwell on the supposed fall of 
man, the trend of thought is toward a Golden Age yet to 
come. That is, our view of evil turns upon the breach 
between the ideal and the actual, and our yearning after 
goodness. Thus Seth calls evil ‘‘the shadow cast by the 
moral ideal upon the actual life.’?* Our thought of it de- 
pends on our view of much that is passing in civilization 
around us. Hence, very much depends on what comes up 
for response in a given epoch, on the standards that pre- 
vail; and so the question of origin plays a lessening role. 
In Mackenzie’s terms, each man’s moral life may be re- 

3 Kthical Principles, p. 214. 


Sin and Evil O14 


garded as a universe, and the universe wherein evil is seen 
may be a broad or a narrow one, and its conflicts may 
vary with the individual.* The evil sought is sought under 
particular circumstances. Again, evil may be regarded in 
contrast with the common good, as in the case of the work- 
man who drinks away his wages, upsets the equilibrium 
of his inner nature, and deprives his trade of an efficient 
member. As the issues are narrowed by our modern 
knowledge, the outlook upon evil changes more rapidly. 
Evil is no longer attributed to a ‘‘force’’? which works 
against the good, that is, a merely general force. It is not 
an impure element getting itself intermixed with other 
elements, as a stream might be contaminated. It is neither 
a power in itself to be condemned outright nor in the 
agent as a whole. Instead it is insubordination among 
various traits and tendencies, it is in the motive and re- 
sults; in the concrete relation, not in anything abstract. 
The existence of moral evil does not prove that man is 
inherently wicked. Evil is in the misuse of powers which 
in right proportions are good. Evil is indeed destructive, 
but not in the same way as a germ. Nor is evil in the 
mere will, for the same will can be used constructively. 
Evil is a hostile or destructive combination, with excessive 
emphasis on a certain tendency or deed, in contrast with 
goodness as integrity or wholeness. Evil is disruption, 
hence the expressions, ‘‘gone all to pieces,’’ ‘‘dissipation,’’ 
‘‘duplicity.’’ The outcome of the evil, if carried further, 
is crime, which becomes downright warfare upon society. 
In contrast with these terms implying disruption, are such 
terms as temperance, self-control, balance, suggesting in- 
tegrity of character. Evil is in general the assertion of 
the part against the whole. Such a conception of evil 
affords hope of ultimate victory over it, that is, through 
the establishment of right adjustments or proportions. 
Mistakes.—In the effort to place evil so that its reality 
is neither denied nor over-estimated, it may be compared 
with mistakes. From want of experience we may make 


4 Op. cit., p. 393. 
5 See Muirhead, Elements of Ethics, p. 161. 


218 Goodness and Freedom 


mistakes or blunders, but as inadvertent such acts are to 
be distinguished from conscious wrong-doing. What is 
wrong is worthy of punishment, involves by contrast what 
is right. What is right we learn in the first place from 
the instruction of our elders. But a mistake may be a 
simple error of judgment into which we fall by ourselves. 
We excuse the mistakes of others. We explain our own 
as due to ignorance. 

Is it possible to classify all sins, evils, and vices under 
the head of ignorance? That is, is it solely a question of 
the intellect with its tendencies to err, not of the will with 
its perversities? Socrates maintained, we have seen, that 
man never does wrong voluntarily, and the proposition, 
‘‘knowledge is virtue,’’ has frequently been defended as 
the basis of ethical theory. The merit of this view is that 
it implies faith in the natural goodness of man, and does 
not attribute evil to a depraved will. But it overlooks 
man’s unruly desires. If the proposition were to be ac- 
cepted in entire seriousness evil would never be regarded 
as anything more than a mistake which further knowledge 
would correct. Both in theory and in practice a distinc- 
tion is made between mistakes and evils. We attribute 
mistakes to stupidity, lack of attention, or fatigue; we 
find that they can be overcome by alertness, practice, in- 
creased effort, concentrated attention. But we attribute 
motives to people whose deeds are evil—who are enemies 
to society, who steal, burn, make war—which put them 
in a class apart from people who make mistakes. <A child 
or mental defective may make a mistake, or may pilfer 
and burn through undirected impulse, which therefore is 
not called evil. 

Crime and Disease.—With the increase of knowledge 
of hereditary and environmental conditions there is an 
increasing tendency to discriminate between disease and 
feeble-mindedness, and evil. The more we learn about 
crime in relation to the state of the brain and nervous 
system, the grade of intelligence of criminals, the more 
probable it may seem that all crime is disease. Investi- 
gators find that many criminals have never had what is 


Sin and Evil 219 


called a fair chance, that they have come into being with 
strong tendencies to passion, abnormal in some respects, 
undeveloped, or have been left without enlightenment in 
a bad environment for which society, not the individuals, is 
responsible. Moreover, our prison systems have been bad 
from time immemorial. Stupid and harsh ways of dealing 
with prisoners have made enemies out of trivial offenders. 
There is abundant reason for saying that human passions 
have been dealt with blindly. Psychology is throwing 
much light in our day on intelligible methods of studying 
the eriminal, and it will not be reasonable to generalize 
till our knowledge of disease and mental defectiveness in 
relation to crime is greatly increased. The individual at 
any rate should not be held responsible without careful 
qualification. His conduct, when wrong, is incomplete, 
and is to be judged in the light of ideals, not alone as 
society ordinarily judges the wrong-doer. Yet, we repeat, 
whatever may be said in behalf of the individual, the con- 
sequences of evil upon society still remain, evil as social 
wrong-doing is the significant fact. 

Knowing and Doing.—Ignorance is not the sole trouble 
with us. Very few of us live faithfully by the best we 
know. Instead of saying that ‘‘we do as well as we know,’’ 
the truer statement would be that there is a discrepancy 
between what we know and would do, and what we find 
ourselves doing or seem to be at present able to do. In 
the face of the will to practice all the virtues of which 
we so ardently approve when we preach, the unruly de- 
sires stand forth, the impeding habits, inertias, and the 
laziness. Granted knowledge, we find that we must make 
effort, overcome, try, and try, and persist. It is easy to 
relapse. It is difficult to make headway. Sometimes we 
realize that we ought, that duty lies in a certain direction, 
yet we let the opportunity pass. Again, we may will to 
do right but find the will ineffective. A temptation arises, 
we assent, yield, aware that we are adopting a lower course 
in the presence of a possible higher. Sometimes indeed 
people grow weary of trying to do right, relax efforts, 
yield to subtle influences and drop back in the scale, All 


220 Goodness and Freedom 


this is evidence that virtue and knowledge are not synony- 
mous. 

If freedom to do right involves freedom to sin, we have 
at least a capacity to do wrong which may be said to con- 
tinue throughout the whole series of our moral experiences. 
This capacity to choose the lower in the presence of a 
higher alternative is of course to be distinguished from 
an innate proclivity to a particular evil in the case of 
an individual born into a degenerate family. The capacity 
may be taken as a sign that man is a moral being. The 
particular proclivity shows that man is also subject through 
heredity to the level of development attained by his 
parents. Hence we do not take credit to ourselves for 
our freedom from such evils, but call it our good fortune. 
Again, we are constrained to recognize the part that in- 
telligence plays, whatever the general capacity, the special 
proclivities, or the environment. Increasing knowledge of 
degeneracy leads us to the conclusion that every child has 
a right to be well-born. If we could decide we would 
doubtless ask for sufficient intelligence to use our abilities 
and opportunities to the fullest advantage. 

Evil and Responsibility—How far back can we trace 
evil, in the effort to distribute responsibility? Ethically 
speaking, not so far as to make one’s theory a makeshift, 
as if we were personally exempt. The man who is honest 
with himself admits that his nature is such that, amid the 
social conditions of the day, he needs all possible enlight- 
enment to put himself above temptation, guard against his 
frailties. For in and of himself he finds that he is cap- 
able of lapsing in the scale. Knowing his own situation 
intimately, he realizes how increase of weaknesses and 
temptations which he knows in part could lead into vice, 
into the malicious and malevolent in the case of other men. 

Evil and sin are not to be wholly explained on deter- 
ministic grounds, that is, with reference to what heredity 
and environment produce or cause in us through the states 
of mind and brain in which our inner life consists. If our 
lesser nature compelled our greater to commit deeds called 
evil, if there were but one course we could pursue, there 


Sin and Evil 92) 


would be no right and wrong. We could then make the 
universal affirmation: ‘‘ whatever is, is right’’ in the sense 
of sheer necessity. But the fact of alternatives is unmis- 
takable, as we shall see more fully when we come to the 
problem of freedom. With consciousness of right comes 
awareness of its opposite as possible. 

Moral evil is not then to be driven back so that at last 
it is attributed to the morally perfect being, God. God has 
power, it has usually been argued, to over-rule evil, to cause 
it to contradict itself, to bring good out of its consequences ; 
but God neither created it nor created us to produce it. 

Sin is Irrational—Evil is not indeed to be explained 
on rational grounds alone. Sin is not to be called rational 
because some of its results can be turned to account. The 
customary term is ‘‘enigma,’’ that is, sin is irrational. To 
sin is to prefer the lower or lesser, while the higher or 
greater is rational. It is willful, not rational transgres- 
sion of laws; is approval of one’s own disorganization. 
Hence it has been put down as a mystery why we ‘‘know 
the right and still the wrong pursue.’’ Since sin is ir- 
rational, there is no explanation in the sense in which we 
rationalize the universe. We find sin as a brute fact, a 
sad fact. Neither heredity nor environment, nor both 
combined, is a complete explanation. Nor can we fall back 
on the assumption that evil is essential to righteousness. 
Mistakes might have been inevitable, and we do not see 
how we could have learned without them. But we hold 
it to be possible to become good without sin. There is no 
reason or excuse for doing evil that good may come. The 
righteous man does not say, with Milton’s Satan, ‘‘ Evil, 
be thou my good.’’ No argument in favor of a period of 
youthful vices as somehow necessary or permissible is 
ethically sound. 

Our argument leaves us then in a unique position: no 
theory of its origin explains evil; God did not cause it; 
man is not inherently evil; on psychological grounds we 
do not find that there is an evil element, such as de- 
sire, will, or the ‘‘unconscious,’’ not even as a native 
endowment. Although no one is willing to foster sin, 


229 Goodness and Freedom 


we find need of the terms wrong, vice, evil, sin, if we 
are to avoid confusion in theory and practice. The 
truth is that we are in process of learning enough about 
ourselves to understand why we do right. We already 
conclude unqualifiedly that sin should be condemned, 
whatever we may say about the whole se!f of the sinner. 
We see too that the consequences of sin as exhibited on the 
screen of life enable us to will that it shall be removed, 
and we know that so to will is to do something that is 
essential to its actual removal. Whatever our condemna- 
tions, it may still be true that there is no sinner so vile that 
love could not touch him, no one in such darkness that the 
light of heaven could not penetrate. 

Evil is Disorganization.—It is also clear that the intel- 
lectual factor is not enough. Mere persuasion or enlighten- 
ment does not suffice: you must love the sinner if you would 
rescue him, touch his heart; realizing that his sin does not 
lie in his ignorance alone, nor in his will apart from his 
impulses and desires. Sin is an expression of a part of 
man’s nature only. No man sins with his whole self, 
although the heart or inmost reason may indeed be sub- 
merged rather than in any sense active. Sin is not self- 
consistency but disorganization, the triumph of certain 
tendencies in combination, reinforced by external influ- 
ences. It begins to disappear with the repudiation of those 
influences. Hence we expect the erstwhile sinner, how- 
ever enlightened we help him to become, to look to him- 
self, admit the sources and the consequences of sin, not 
putting upon others what belongs to himself, so that, hav- 
ing changed his attitude, he may become open to remak- 
ing influences. Complete enlightenment might indeed in 
some cases mean immediate full response of lLeart, so that 
there would be no distinguishable moment between clari- 
fying understanding and decisive assent of will. But in 
actual experience we find that enlightenment comes grad- 
ually, and that response of will is distributed through sue- 
cessive efforts. Paul the Apostle groaned over his in- 
ability to do right even when he so willed with all the 
intensity of his being. Jesus, commonly regarded as the 


Sin and Evil 223 


sinless one, cried out as if forsaken and asked to have the 
cup removed. Involved in any complete view of the re- 
generative process is religious teaching in regard to good 
influences which overcome even our most persistent frail- 
ties, when there is the will; hence the conviction that it is 
not our own will alone that brings about our remaking. I 
am partly ready for the quickening process when con- 
strained to admit my part. Ethically speaking, there is 
also an advantage in regarding myself as a child of God, 
created in the divine image and likeness, instead of deem- 
ing myself a poor miserable sinner, with no help in me. 
Tf all goodness is at last God’s goodness, in this goodness 
man may share, by divine aid the ideal can be made to 
triumph. 

Summary.—It might be said that sin is due to igno- 
rance; hence that it is not real, does not imply an inherent 
element of wickedness in man. Or it might be attributed 
to the survival of animal traits and instincts, desires and 
passions, intensified and not understood; to bad heredity 
plus unfortunate environment; to disease, degeneracy 
springing from abnormal conditions, defective mentality. 
And so it might be said that sin, evil, and vice, will cease 
through enlightenment, self-knowledge, education, improve- 
ment in social conditions. But sin is also regarded as an 
enigma, always bad, always in conflict with reason, with 
righteousness, with God. It is pointed out that men do 
not do as well as they know. Temptation, vice, evil, crime, 
are sad facts, utterly dark in themselves. Sin may be 
largely due to perversity of will in some eases, to the frail- 
ties of human nature, to the subtler influences of environ- 
ment which affect the less-conscious. But this does not 
explain it. Sin is inconsistency, disorganization; the sin- 
ner prefers himself to the community in its better estate, 
prefers himself to God. Sin is not overcome by ordinary 
human efforts alone but by regenerative influences. Evil 
as a social problem requires all the light that can be brought 
to bear upon it by psychological analysis, that its types 
may be recognized, that full account may be taken of every 
factor in mind and body, in the conscious and the uncon- 


294 Goodness and Freedom 


scious, In brief, evil is to be regarded in the light of the 
conditions under which it appears, the judgments passed in 
relation to it; for the higher of today may become the lower 
of tomorrow. 


REFERENCES 


SetH, J., Hthical Principles, pp. 214, 440. 

Mackenzig, J. 8., Manual of Ethics, Bk. III, Chap. VI. 

MurrHeaD, J. H., Hlements of Ethics, p. 161. 

Dresser, H. W., Psychology in Theory and Application, Chap. 
XXXIT; references, p. 527. 

SmitH, Hamprin, The Psychology of the Criminal, 1923. 

Pavuusen, F., System of Ethics, trans., Bk. II, Chap. IV. 

Warp, J., The Realm of Ends, 1911, Chaps. XVI, XVII. 

Royrcg, J., Studies of Good and Evil, 1906. 

RASHDALL, H., The Theory of Good and Evil, Vol. II, p. 235, 
foll. 


CHAPTER XV, 
CONSCIENCE 


Scope of the Term.—The definition of the good as self- 
realization seems to mean the existence of some power in 
ourselves by which the implied activities are measured, 
eriticized and coordinated. These tasks are said to be 
achieved by conscience, a term used with much greater 
precision in ethics than in popular thought, although 
moral philosophers have not always been careful to define 
the term. In fact, conscience has been made to cover the 
whole field of inner consciousness, from feeling to reason. 
As we have seen, it is now a ‘‘moral sense,’’ again, ‘‘in- 
tuition,’’ a distinctive ‘‘faculty’’ divine in authority, or 
a power of adjustment to the nature of things. An entire 
ethical theory may be founded upon it, if conscience is 
somehow set apart as exercising judicial power over all 
other activities within the human self. Or its authority 
may decrease to the minimum in terms of a theory of evo- 
lution. 

Popular Conceptions.—It is important to note the vari- 
ous popular meanings, because these in each case underlie 
customary conduct, which passes unscrutinized until the 
implied view of conscience is called in question. Thus 
conscience is unreflectively regarded as ‘‘moral fecling,’’ 
the feeling that I ought to do this, or refrain from doing 
that, although no reason may be given. But no element 
of our inner nature is more vague than ‘‘feeling,’’ now 
identified with sentiment, now with varying emotions, or 
with inclinations toward mere comfort and the unthinking 
pursuit of happiness. Not until the judgment that I ra- 
tionally ought to do this and refrain from that is made 
explicit does one begin to see the part which feeling plays. 
Again, conscience is supposed to be a voice, ‘‘the voice of 
God in the soul of man’’ telling him what to do, forbidding 

225 


226 Goodness and Freedom 


him to do what is wrong. Thus regarded it is identified 
with the higher of the two voices in conflict within us, and 
problems arise in connection with the voice which tempts. 
Thus on the whole conscience is a perplexing monitor, 
causing us to weigh pros and cons till we are weary, to 
consider motives till it seems impossible to decide, unless 
perchance we stop deliberating and simply take a chance. 
Although conscience is a human power, linking charac- 
ter with all our frailties, it is also taken to be infallible: 
man goes against it at his peril, and in the end realizes 
that it was absolutely right. But apparently, too, con- 
science is tribal or racial, has developed through habit, 
custom, and moral codes regarded as authoritative. Al- 
though absolute it is somehow relative. If we take it to be 
the voice of man’s tribal self, conscience is plainly deter- 
mined by a man’s social universe; hence it may attach 
itself to whatever system is regarded as highest, in race 
or nation, church or state, or by any group within larger 
groups taking exception to what passes current under the 
name of the law, a moral code, or a religious system. 
The Variability of Conscience.—It is deeply significant 
that what men do in the name of conscience differs greatly 
from age to age, in one country as compared with another 
in the same age, in one institution or by one individual 
who leads or counteracts an institution. The tendency 
among tribes to tell the truth within the tribe and to lie 
to neighboring tribes is noted among nations, too, and a 
different standard in regard to truth-speaking has been 
noted among Oriental peoples in contrast with nations in 
the Occident. The Spartans were not the only people in 
ancient times who judged it right to expose their weaker 
children to perish. In China the custom of abandoning 
female infants has seemed right for centuries. If we 
find Mohamedans committing what we call crimes in the 
name of the right, we are perhaps reminded of the Span- 
ish inquisition and other barbarous practices carried on 
under the Christian name. It may seem strange to us that 
even the most enlightened leaders among the Greeks ap- 
proved of slavery, but when slavery is mentioned we re- 


Conscience 2207 


member no doubt how difficult it was to reach a national 
decision in the name of conscience in our own land. We 
have tolerated methods, customs, barbarous practices and 
atrocities in the game of war which would have been con- 
demned in China centuries before the dawn of the Chris- 
tian era. We are scarcely able as yet to say precisely what 
the judgment of Christian peoples is concerning war. It 
seems out of the question to determine the nature of con- 
science by reference to deeds done with its sanction. 

Conscience as a Faculty—When we seek light from 
psychology, we find no reason to defend the popular as- 
sumption that conscience is a faculty, or even that it is a 
matter of either feeling or judgment exclusively. To re- 
gard it as intellectual, is to conclude that it is a mode of 
judgment or reflection of a certain quality rather than an 
activity which is sharply to be distinguished from the life 
of reason in general. It yields a characteristic feeling, 
and we commonly associate certain pangs with what we 
judge to be wrong-doing and anticipate a certain satisfac- 
tion when our conduct meets with the approval of those 
whose moral estimates we respect. Whatever value we may 
assign to its pronouncements, it is plain that it functions 
according to the well-known processes of conception, judg- 
ment, and reasoning; together with the desires which imply 
love of ideals, and the activities of will which express char- 
acter. Conscience is not ‘‘intuition,’’ in the popular sense; 
for in this sense no account is taken of the way intuition 
derives its content, or of its relation to perception in gen- 
eral, to insight as a culmination of processes of reflection. 
It is not a ‘‘sense,’’ as if it were independent as the eye or 
the ear serves to differentiate sensation in terms of its 
organs, or as visual and auditory impressions enable us 
to discriminate. The moral-sense theory has to be judged 
in comparison with other views, as a theory, not because it 
assumes the existence of a faculty to account for moral 
judgments: it was a simple matter to postulate the exist- 
ence of a faculty to substantiate that theory, in the days 
when psychology proceeded on a facultative basis in gen- 
eral. 


998 Goodness and Freedom 


As a Voice.—With reference to the idea that conscience 
is a voice, we note that in actual experience we are very 
far from being told precisely what to do, or what is wrong, 
although our consciousness may sometimes project certain 
words into our thought as if they were uttered by an inner 
voice, aS if a voice were speaking with the authority of 
‘‘revelation.’”? We are frequently left in the dark, and 
must seek advice, read, ponder, delay, entertain doubts, 
let the matter rest and return to it after an interval of 
complete change. We find it impossible to eliminate the 
element of uncertainty, the realization that we must decide 
and act where faith is required; and we find ourselves 
plunging into action at last even though we can not clearly 
see what is right. Conscience is active in weighing or re- 
flecting upon alternatives rather than in any phase of con- 
sciousness to be described in terms of a ‘‘sense.’’ The 
supposed voice or guidance is personal, is an individual’s 
experience making itself known as a sign, a check or warn- 
ing. Reflection must still ensue, or a tentative effort to 
determine what is right, to see what eventuates if one 
departs on a course that might be judged as ‘‘wrong.”’ 

The Moral Constant.—It is plainly not a mere question 
of origin, in the sense of appeal to a part of our nature, 
or to social origins exclusively. A conscience supposedly 
made for us by custom would change with the mutations 
of custom, or cease with the tribe or nation that produced 
it. But conscience is regarded as universal, authoritative 
over and above customs and peoples: the law or obligation 
is over us all, implied in all our moral judgments. Con- 
science has authority rather than power. As a tribunal 
it does not reside in my inner sanctuary alone, but is fun- 
damental to the moral life. Developing its implications, 
we realize that it demands consistency, a certain order or 
scale in all our activities, culminating in the performance 
of duty. It is the moral constant, while what is done in 
its name varies with the ages, among different peoples, 
with the religion, the sanctions by which it is supported, 
the prevailing psychology, the contingencies that arise, 
particularly in war-time. It varies too within the career 


Conscience 999 


of a given individual who is progressing. It develops with 
the ages, and every now and then some fresh considera- 
tion is introduced which has not influenced the judgments 
of men before; with every marked social change new prob- 
lems arise. Conscience persists as the universal moral 
form, while what we reflect on and do with respect to it 
is its content, always subject to variability, always rela- 
tive. 

The Evolutional View.—Conscience then is not essen- 
tially empirical. It is not a mere product of experience, 
as we see by examining the evolutionary view. Clifford 
endeavors to explain it as due to maxims derived from 
hereditary and other influences due to social experience, 
as in the tribe which, wishing to survive, seeking its own 
well-being, adopts pious customs that make for survival.t 
From this point of view, piety is encouraged for biological 
reasons, natural selection preserves the tribes which ap- 
prove the right things. Right actions then are those that 
are liked by the tribe, wrong those disliked; a man is re- 
sponsible so far only as he can be punished by the tribe 
with approval or disapproval. Self-adjustment in the name 
of the tribe would then be conscience, moral maxims are 
the precepts which the tribe learns, ethics is a matter of 
the community, that is, the increased efficiency of the 
tribe is the dominant motive. Conscience would then be the 
whole aggregate of our feelings in regard to actions deemed 
right or wrong. 

A serious objection to this view is that there might then 
be as many consciences as tribes, conscience would be re- 
duced to a tribal instinct, and we would have no principle 
or moral constant wherewith to bring together the con- 
sciences of peoples, the judgments of history. We find no 
real explanation of conscience today when we try to trace 
its authority to parents and teachers who impress customs 
and precepts on the child, or to our given order of society 
with its laws. The hereditary or traditional wisdom of a 
people may well supply content for conscience, on which 
the coming generation begins to pass judgment, which the 

1 Cf. Mackenzie, op. cit., p. 117. 


230 Goodness and Freedom 


increasing generation judges more determinately. But 
this does not explain the deep conviction that conscience 
involves awareness of a law by which the moral person 
deems himself internally bound. It is this ‘‘felt internal 
binding,’’ as Martineau terms it, which constitutes the 
heart of conscience, and this awareness of obligation per- 
sists throughout the successive changes. What we take to 
be the divine sanction sharply marks itself off from custom, 
from what the world, the nation, the political party, the 
ruler, or even the Church approves. Experience serves in- 
deed to awaken conscience, to supply subject-matter; but 
conscience is that which measures and tests moral experi- 
ences, which sits in judgment on new and stirring events 
involving moral issues: conscience makes moral experience 
possible, it is potential in our nature. 

As a Dictate.—Conscience has been described as a sort 
of dictate formed within us by spiritual teachings which 
have been impressed upon us, which we have acquired from 
the Bible, a perception from spiritual truth regarding what 
is right, or a perception implanted in the mind from in- 
fancy, ‘‘the law written in the heart.’’ But if we say that 
conscience is formed with man from the religion in which 
he is reared, from that which the given religious group ap- 
proves as true or the code accepted as right, we still have 
a problem due to the manner in which the individual in- 
teriorly receives what is disclosed with this sanction. Con- 
science is indeed active with those who speak and act from 
the heart, and to act against the heart is to act against 
conscience. But religion has its external as well as its 
internal bonds. <A religious truth may be accepted be- 
eause God is reported to have uttered it, because it is in the 
Bible, is taught by the Church, is in the creed as matter 
of tradition, or as implied in the ceremonials and charities 
in which the given group engages. Every sectarian indi- 
vidual will naturally hold that his own dogmas and ob- 
Servanees are true. The truths of conscience will then be 
various, also the deeds done in the name of goodness; and 
there will be judgments concerning the false and the true, 
the external and the internal. The individual will need 


Conscience 231 


to judge what is to be believed and what is to be done, 
what has divine sanction and what has not. The interior 
acknowledgment will be from a certain plane, and that 
plane will of course be lifted up with the implantation of 
higher truths, with the formation of what is known in 
religious circles as ‘‘a new will’’ and a new understanding, 
or with increase of what is taken to be the divine presence. 

At best conscience in such terms would seem to be a 
‘‘dictate’’ that a certain principle is true rather than a 
pronouncement concerning what is true, as if conscience 
eould tell man outright without the conflicts which we all 
know. In any event the individual accepts, judges, makes 
the venture; each has his reasons, beliefs, feelings, or in- 
centives. Sometimes the ‘‘dictate’’ simply means that one 
has been so taught, that one has faith in the accepted 
teaching. Some religious people appear to be devoid of 
spiritual perception or any direct apprehension of what is 
good and true. Such insight would naturally differ from 
judgments concerning what is right to be done, hence 
partisans of interior judgment would differ from those who 
see only what is done, hear only what is said, and put 
their conservative zeal into these externals. 

Religious Sentiments.—It is a difficult matter for the 
zealous to go against conscience, yet religious consciences 
may be pitted against one another; and it may be diffi- 
cult to show that conscience is ‘‘interior perception of good 
and truth,’’ or that ‘‘they have no conscience who have no 
interior plane to receive the influx.’’ Religious people are 
little likely to distinguish between the intellectual element 
taken on in the name of conscience—the truths accepted, 
the teachings given a certain interpretation, or adopted 
with reservations—and the volitional element by which the 
ventures of faith are made. There is plainly a difference 
between conscience as formed by acceptance of tradition 
and conscience as acquired through what the individual 
takes to be direct inner experience of spiritual realities, 
which he perhaps puts in contrast with the sentiments and 
values conserved by tradition. Hach individual may stoutly 
protest that God rules him through what he believes is 


232 Goodness and Freedom 


right and true, each has his view of the inner dictate, of 
righteousness in relation to the neighbor, of what con- 
stitutes regeneration, of what things are fallacies or here- 
sies. Conscience with each, empirically speaking, is the 
group of teachings and elements of conduct by which he 
judges; and each may be equally conscientious in living 
up to what his conscience approves. Meanwhile, some of 
us will continue to believe we have the right of it because 
we discriminate between externals and internals, and find 
in the latter a direct clue to spiritual perception, hence to 
immediate apprehension of the good and the true. 

Conscience as Divine —If{ then we ask whether con- 
science be divine, several questions will be involved. We 
may say that it is divine in the sense that we could not 
possess spiritual truth, without the mind of God, if we hold 
that our being as founded in God is moral. Perfectly to 
conceive our nature and our life, as made in the divine 
image and likeness, would then be to possess conscience 
in its rational fullness. Perfectly to will and to do in 
accordance with our moral selfhood as founded in God 
would be to manifest conscience in its fullness in conduct. 
We should then approximate conscience in its ‘‘infallibil- 
ity.”’ Conscience as we know it is known only in part, 
as divine-human. We are in the throes. We are not in 
agreement as to the mode in which the divine sanctions 
have been established, whether immediately, through the 
Bible (however interpreted, however it was written, and 
by whom) or through the Church. Hence in religious con- 
nections, aS in others, we must distinguish between ideal 
and actual, form and content, universal and particular, 
goal and process. 

Practical Clues.—Conscience in its universality is the 
law, the expression of obligation or duty as incumbent upon 
all, constant. As manifesting its power in human experi- 
ence it is moral reflection, reason engaged in weighing pros 
and cons. In a given case it may be accompanied by what 
the individual calls ‘‘impressions,’’ ‘‘leadings,’’ or guid- 
ances, a voice, with regard to the inner light, the presence 
of the divine in inner experience; or it may take tempera- 


Conscience 933 


mental and social forms which lead to the classification of 
its possessor aS progressive, conservative, or radical. To 
say that conscience is essentially rational is not then to dis- 
eredit the aids to judgment which the individual adopts. 
The Quaker ‘‘leading’’ or ‘‘inner guidance”? may be taken 
as a typical clue, while ‘‘the light of Christ in the soul’’ 
is the Quaker’s ethical principle: to wait in silence for the 
leading is one of the methods pursued by the highly con- 
seientious. Each individual is likely to idealize his par- 
ticular mode of putting ‘‘guidance’’ over against inclina- 
tion, wise advice against personal desire, a ‘‘vocation’’ in 
contrast with worldly ambition. To affirm that a voice is 
from God and then act upon it on faith is obviously to 
take a certain risk. Almost insensibly we add to and in- 
terpret whatever prompting, advice or principle may come 
to us, and so we give to it a sense of authority. We draw 
upon both experience and thought, desire and character, 
temperamental traits and reactions upon habit. What we 
take to be the divine element is at best the universal prin- 
ciple implied in all particular judgments. We sometimes 
accept a plan of action simply because we have no knowl- 
edge to offset it, but again we stand off and raise objec- 
tions to the limit. In all instances conscience is the ethical 
principle or constant, implied, tacitly insisted upon when 
we adopt a scale of values. 

Elements.—The intellectual element of conscience is 
implied in the act of moral judgment, which is plainly not 
a mere judgment of fact, but a judgment passed on a sit- 
uation according to a standard. It is because of this 
judicial element that conscience is said to command, accuse, 
bear witness, acquit, or condemn.? The rational element 
ean be distinguished from the empirical by taking pains 
not to attribute to moral intuition more than rightfully 
belongs to it. In Green’s phraseology, it is the conscience 
of the individual which brings the principle of human 
equality, for example, into productive contact with the 
particular facts of human experience; there is ‘‘an imma- 
nent operation of ideas of reason in the process of social 

2See Muirhead, op, cit., p. 72. 


ISA Goodness and Freedom 


organization’’ upon which the intuitions of the individual 
depend.? The individual’s conscience is ‘‘reason in him 
as informed by the work of reason without him in the struc- 
ture and controlling sentiments of society.’’ The individ- 
ual, by higher nature moral, with an inherent principle of 
spiritual activity, contributes the ethical universal, on the 
basis of which he passes judgment upon particular matters 
said to involve right and wrong in his given age or social 
group, with its relative standards. Whatever his selfhood 
is potentially, he is dependent on knowledge gained through 
experience and reflection on what is judged right and 
wrong, through study of philosophic truth, instruction, in- 
sight into principles which withstand critical analysis. 

Conscience also yields an element of feeling that the 
right is endangered, and that consequently we should do 
our part in its service. Hence people in its name feel that 
they should respond, accept a moral opportunity without 
too closely calculating gains and losses. It is the charac- 
teristic feeling of conscience which brings its judgments 
home to us with such conviction, both when conscience 
yields a pang if we do wrong and when it discloses en- 
thusiasm for the right in connection with the cause to which 
we are loyal. The contrasted sentiments of conscience are 
indeed so pronounced that it is not strange to find some 
moral theorists insisting on conscience as moral feeling, 
in contrast with those who, emphasizing the intellectual 
element, have identified it with reason. 

Conscience inspires and strengthens the will, gives cour- 
age to do right; and we realize that at times very much 
depends on our conduct. These three qualities then com- 
bine to give conscience authority, with the conviction that 
it is more than individual or personal, that it involves a 
power not ourselves which ‘‘makes for righteousness.’’ 
Conscience is thus partly intuitive in the sense of being 
prior to moral judgments, and partly empirical in each of 
its constituent qualities. Sometimes its elements of judg- 
ment and feeling stand in contradiction to one another. 
Sometimes its judgments are emphatically relative, and, 

3 Prolegomena to Ethics, p. 228, 


Conscience 235 


as Muirhead points out, we waver between the view that 
we know intuitively that there is a standard and the view 
that intuition is helpless to tell us what the standard is.* 
The authority of conscience is in a sense internal, a part 
of our very nature; yet it is also objective or above us, 
while being dependent on what is external for the con- 
tent which history and contact with the world supply. 

Our account will keep close to the reality of the ethical 
situation, if we bear in mind the fact that conscience is a 
phase of consciousness (as awareness of our total selfhood), 
that phase, namely, which makes us acutely aware of the 
part which conduct plays in realizing the self.° By aid 
of consciousness we test our views of reality, all the while 
endeavoring to make our knowledge both precise and com- 
plete, critical and thorough. By the aid of conscience, we 
test ourselves even more incisively, comparing our conduct 
with the highest standard yet given to the world. It thus 
becomes a principle of interpretation of the greatest im- 
portance, a means of determining what are the supreme 
values. 

The Growth of Conscience.—The awareness which we 
call conscience may be very greatly dulled through disre- 
gard of its promptings, and it may be almost wholly buried 
in the habitual sinner. Superficially at least, people 
make light of its standards as if it had no more authority 
than passing opinion. Yet one may steadily grow in knowl- 
edge of its content and worth by successively noting these 
fluctuations and reducing them to their sourées. The acut- 
est student needs rationally progressive knowledge of con- 
Science, and precise study brings investigators into closer 
agreement. The authority of conscience is thereby more 
an end to be striven for and attained despite all relativities 
than a principle on which we may agree at the outset. 
Our perplexities do not cease with our knowledge, for as we 
become more precise we raise new difficulties and dwell 
upon a hundred details where an earlier generation would 
have seen but one. We do not even wholly escape from the 


4 Op. cit., p. 76. 
5 Cf. Muirhead, op. cit., p. 220. 


236 Goodness and Freedom 


pangs and pains, or at least the doubts to which former 
difficulties gave rise. We need education in matters of 
conscience long after we have acquired a definite theory 
of its origin, authority, and constituents. We educate one 
another in a great number of ways, by refinements of doc- 
trine, by niceties of taste, by insistence on our standards, 
by putting the individual over against society. The con- 
servative sometimes helps us as much as the non-conform- 
ist. All these considerations prove that conscience is 
partly empirical, and only potentially ‘‘innate.’’ No indi- 
vidual acquires anew all that conscience yields, although 
each must test for himself sufficiently to realize the inti- 
mate relationship between conscience and the individual, 
as well as the dependence of the individual on ‘‘the social 
universe which he inhabits,’’ or the system of things which 
he regards as highest. And one of the tests is implied 
in the pain we feel when, in each ease, we realize the incon- 
sistency between our conduct and the standards which we 
adopt in relation to one level or group of society after an- 
other. 

Conscience is a Synthesis.—It is out of the question 
then to adopt either a purely evolutional theory of con- 
science or any view which neglects the empirical elements. 
Evolutionism by itself is unable to account for what has 
been called the august element of conscience, its high aim, 
its greater values. If the evolution of society were synony- 
mous with moral progress we would look for a steady 
increase of sensitiveness to ethical considerations, but we 
do not find that this is the case. In the life of a given 
individual there may be neglect of moral values in later 
years, where increased interest would be expected. On 
the other hand the theory that nothing in the sphere of 
conscience is learned by experience is no less one-sided 
than the view that everything moral is acquired by evolu- 
tion. Yet both theories contain a large measure of truth. 
The human self contains at least the form or possibility of 
morality, while the matter is given by experience, and this 
content differs with the individual. The obligation or 


6 Mackenzie, op. cit., p. 304. 


Conscience 237 


moral law is the universal over us all and including us all 
as the condition of moral experience. This element is in 
the race, is founded in our nature as human beings, is in 
our moral constitution. The empirical element is given 
through individual and social experience. 

It is plain that experiments in righteousness are still 
of value, that we are still in the throes of discovering what 
is right, both as nations and as individuals, and oftentimes 
we are sorely at a loss to decide. New situations not only 
teach new duties and make ancient usages uncouth, as the 
poet assures us, but disclose problems so new that we do 
not see our duty at first. In our progress toward a solution 
we find it important to avoid being too serious and unduly 
analytical. We must preserve our spontaneity. In the 
light of later insights we can return and judge experiences 
which were too close to be understood. Moral insight is 
the great ideal, in contrast with moral feeling, and such 
insight is an achievement which we make with the passage 
of time. 

The Element of Authority.—Conscience is by common 
consent supreme in its sphere, the last court of appeal, 
after we have sought advice, consulted the wisest men, read 
the best books, weighed the pros and cons of differing 
ethical systems. Hence the importance of realizing that 
it contains intellectual, emotional, and volitional elements, 
each of which comes into prominence at times, while all 
three are to be thought of as habitually present, not as 
appearing successively.7 On occasion one may discern the 
issues with great clearness and proceed to an analysis of 
the pros and cons to determine the highest principle in- 
volved. But, again, the element of will or of sentiment 
may be paramount, as in the case of any of our judgments 
concerning matters of value, whatever the department of 
life. Difficulties have entered in so far as, identifying con- 
science with the code or system prevailing in a given age 
or among a certain people, man has come to look upon 
conscience as infallible. Only the moral constant, as we 
have called it, persists, not the judgments passed in the 


7 Cf. Everett, Moral Values, p. 274. 


238 Goodness and Freedom 


name of conscience, not the deeds regarded as right, or 
even the codes and systems. The latter are subject to 
change in proportion as our knowledge of moral history 
grows, and as we realize that the authority is not absolute 
but dependent on the social situation, with its prevailing 
system. The authority of conscience is that of universal 
moral reason; the insight of the spirit, which advances 
with our knowledge and experience, and through inter- 
action among individuals, devotees of systems, or repre- 
sentatives of nations. Conscience itself, as form, ground, 
moral universal, yields the rationalizing element of au- 
thority ; while the successive judgments supply the subject- 
matter, which is as likely to change as our convictions 
change on such questions as slavery, the rights of woman, 
the value of non-resistance, the relation of war to the Chris- 
tian life, or the place of diplomacy among nations. Con- 
Science in application needs no other authority than the 
sanctions wherewith we seck to make it as powerful as 
possible, according to the ethical or religious system which 
we adopt. It has the authority of moral obligation, the 
law that there shall be law. | 

The Ethical Scale.—The ideal of conscience is a gradu- 
ated scale of excellencies involving centralization, self- 
consistency on our part, in our endeavor to classify our 
leading interests by the standard which we take to be 
supreme. Conscience is at once the sensitivity through 
which we test motives, their right to a place in the scale, 
and the principle of criticism through which we arrive 
at a standard or ideal, an ideal which is subject to de- 
velopment through our efforts to make it more precise. 
Conscience is concerned with right motives in relation to 
right judgments. Its occupation is with the entire series 
of inner springs of action, which vary from the lowest 
motive ever felt by the self to the most worthy ever dis- 
cerned in supreme moments of moral and spiritual vision. 

Martineau has undertaken thorough classification of the 
Springs of action in relation to conscience. There is a 
prudential series and a moral. Prudence, in relation to 


8 Op cit., Book I, Chap. V. 


Conscience 239 


the springs of action, implies self-surrender to the strong- 
est impulse, duty is self-surrender to the highest. The 
prudential scale is variable, individual, egoistic; the moral 
is identical and constant for all men. Prudence is con- 
fined to secondary impulses; conscience has discrimination 
over the whole, considers differences of inherent excellence 
and authority cognizable prior to action, not learned by 
experiment but read off by insight, and discerns the inter- 
vals between the springs of action. Conscience, in fact, 
shows an unspeakably great interval between the two com- 
peting impulses, while prudence must await action, moral 
judgment anticipates it. Our conscience is an enduring 
reality of our nature, announces laws not of our own mak- 
ing but higher: one’s own will bows in homage to the law, 
one can not put it down. Thus, Martineau shows that 
conscience is more than myself, has its seat in the eternal, 
its reality in God: a revelation of authority to one person, 
it is valid for all. Hence, in knowing our actions as better 
and worse, we know the divine will: the reverence or 
respect which conscience inspires is identical with devotion 
to God, is the apex or crown of human character.® 

The springs of action as thus classified and estimated 
involve 1. A Pyschological Order: (1) Primary, unreflect- 
ing instinct, natural expressiveness; (2) Secondary, that 
is, tendencies which supervene upon self-knowledge and 
experience, with preconceived ends in view. For example, 
among primary promptings to action are: (1) propensions 
(organic appetites, animal spontaneity); passions (antip- 
athy, fear, anger); affections (parental, social, compas- 
Sionate); sentiments (wonder, admiration, reverence). 
Among the secondary incentives belong such propensions 
as love of pleasure, money, power; such passions as malice, 
vindictiveness, suspiciousness; such an affection as senti- 
mentality ; and such sentiments as self-culture, sestheticism, 
and interest in religion. 2. A Moral Order. Here we 
come upon conscience in full exercise, passing judgment 
upon the entire series, excluding some of the secondary 


® Ibid., p. 221, 
10 [bid., Chap. VI. 


240 Goodness and Freedom 


promptings, and looking forward to ulterior compounds. 
Reverence as the highest spring of action is noble and I 
admire it, a dictate of perfect mind and I revere it as 
looking through and past the act to the character which it 
expresses; it is the supreme form of the love of the right. 
The scale of relations which thus culminates in reverence 
as identical with devotion to God is intended to show the 
duty of the moral agent in each crisis of competing im- 
pulses. It might well be that some springs to action would 
be stirred more frequently than others, the superior on 
rare occasions. But Martineau holds that due allowances 
can be made for frequency, as for quantity and quality. 
Our real discipline enters with the clashing of the invol- 
untary with the voluntary, and the management of the 
surprises which it brings. The resulting rule is: ‘‘ Every 
action is right, which, in the presence of a lower principle, 
follows a higher; every action is wrong, which, in presence 
of a higher principle, follows a lower.’’™ 

Objections to Martineau’s Scale—To this scheme it 
has been objected that the list of springs of action rests 
on a false psychological division, since modern psychology 
regards the mind as an organic unity, and sets aside any 
hard and fast distinction between faculties such as Mar- 
tineau depends upon.1? As the motives enumerated are 
not simple but highly complex, their merits would depend 
on their composition; and we should be guided rather by 
the end to be attained, not by the sources of our activity. 
Again, Sidgwick points out that, even granting that 
Martineau’s scale corresponds to the judgments of men, it 
is paradoxical to lay down the principle that each elass 
of motives is always to be preferred to the class below it, 
without regard to circumstances and consequences. As 
the moral agent advances the higher motives would be de- 
veloped so that their normal sphere would be enlarged at 
the expense of the lower: the intervention of higher motives 
would then be the decisive factor, not the next higher in 
the scale. Hence, Sidgwick does not find the scale ap- 


11 [bid., p. 270. 
12 See Mackenzie, op. cit., p. 131. 


Conscience | Q41 


plicable to his own case, the supreme regulative motive is 
really the decisive one.13 

So too, Professor Palmer, noting that Martineau regards 
his scale as pioneer work, asks why according to the whole 
principle on which the scale is founded there should be 
any doubt: we ought to be able to turn within and find 
the table there. It is clear that any mistake in the psy- 
chology of the scale would be a mistake in ethics too. Life 
as found is not so abstract. With all the effort put into 
it, the table is not complete, filial affection is omitted, 
also courage. It does not seem possible to determine by 
this scale what motives are superior. If true, the scale 
would abolish all moral insight. 

Again, in actual efforts to live by it, students of ethics 
have found that it does not sufficiently settle problems 
where there are conflicts of values. The table is found of 
greater interest psychologically than ethically. Some have 
missed spontaneity, as if it had no ethical value or char- 
acter. Again, the scale assumes too great uniformity 
among moral standards. The doubt arises whether we 
ean know that others’ judgments of motives are just. Not 
enough consideration is given to mixed motives, and it is 
these that are chiefly influential. Judgment by ‘‘the 
fruits’’ of moral action is still a sound means of testing 
our motives, in contrast with Martineau’s extreme em- 
phasis on promptings arising within the self and judged 
prior.+* 

Need of a Working Scale.—Nevertheless, the serious- 
ness with which Martineau’s scale has been considered is 
strong testimony in favor of a working scale of values. 
If Martineau gives too little attention to spontaneity, and 
the worth of results, the resource is to examine moral 
experience with fidelity to more recent psychology, avoid- 
ing any assumption that our springs of action are ‘‘in- 
nate’’ in the sense of a separateness between ‘‘faculties’’ ; 
noting individual differences; and putting emphasis on 
purposes rather than on incentives. One may have in 


138 H. Sidgwick, Methods of Ethics, p. 369. 
14 See, also, Rashdall, op. cit., Vol. II, 110, foll. 


Q49 Goodness and Freedom 


mind a tentative scale concerning a few of the more fre- 
quent or the more eligible promptings, without attempting 
to draw up an exhaustive table and without being too 
precise. No two persons would draw up the same scale, 
and the scale proposed at twenty-five would differ from 
one formulated at fifty. Yet the existence of conscience 
implies a hierarchy both of incentives to action and of 
ends to be striven for. The difficulties experienced are the 
Same we encounter everywhere when we try to put life or 
the dynamic element into a form, likely to become static. 
Conscience yields an _imperative which we are strongly 
tempted to put forth in terms of finality. But the au- 
thority of conscience, its rule over us by practice of which 
we draw nearer the divine, is in the command to be true 
and loyal to the highest we see today, with the realization 
that as our insight increases we may discern the goal more 
clearly tomorrow. 

As Leslie Stephen shows, conscience implies a judgment 
of the whole character;?°> and we know that character is 
not only manifold in content but is in process of develop- 
ment. So, too, Dewey and Tufts maintain that conscience 
implies a knowledge of the whole act—purpose, motive, 
and deed.*® It is in this larger sense that conscience de- 
mands complete obedience: reflective morality is a sign of 
a progressive society, while customary morality is evidence 
that society has become stationary. By a progressive con- 
sclence we mean one that retains its sensitiveness to the 
mutations of the ethical spirit in the race. It is ‘‘the 
critical perception’’ we have not only of the relative au- 
thority of our ‘‘several springs of action,’’ the factor on 
which Martineau dwells,1” out also our perception of the 
issue which become vital in the social order in which we 
live, subject as it is to changes as marked as those wrought 
by the World War. What Martineau calls the intervals 
between the springs of action have changed in our day, 
with ideas of the unconscious; and conscience is now 


15 Sctence of Ethics, p. 315. 
16 Hthics, p. 183. 
17 Op. cit., p. 54. 


Conscience Q43 


concerned with the task of codrdinating the elements of 
our nature which have unwittingly played a great part in 
our motives. Conscience has a different sense of the rela- 
tive values along the scale, since the emphasis shifted in 
favor of what is dynamic in our nature. If able to discern 
the ruling passion or prevailing love, we may concentrate 
upon this, lifting the whole scale by purifying our love. 
The function of conscience is to guide in this the crucial 
situation. Its function is positive, affirmative; not pro- 
hibitory, as if ever insisting ‘‘Thou shalt not.’’ That 
which is ‘‘absolutely right’’ can not be stated in terms of 
negations, or in condemnations put upon our lower pro- 
pensities. The perfect scale, could we possess it, would 
disclose the use of each prompting in its proper place, each 
incentive being contributory, each good, every one needed. 
There would then, in practice, be no excesses, either on the 
lower levels or near the top; but a joyous attainment of 
the abundant life.18 

Summary.—Conscience then is that principle of our 
moral nature or combination of moral elements which 
sets the standard for all others; implies moral law, obliga- 
tion, duty. It is the witness in ourselves of the right, a 
perception of moral distinctions accompanied by aware- 
ness that we ought to do what we take to be right. As 
involving knowledge of the good, it is a species of judg: 
ment. As implying the permanent basis of moral obliga- 
tion, it persists through all moral changes, is the moral 
constant in all human history: conscience itself determines 
the natural history of moral distinctions, is the ‘‘higher’’ 
involved in judgments concerning the ‘‘lower.’’ Thus 
conscience yields the ideal of moral worth in the long 
progress toward the highest standard. The moral variables 
of our nature become intelligible in the light of the con- 
stant which gives meaning to all relativities in our judg- 
ments. It is because of conscience that we come to need 
a scale of values. 


18 The question of the social conscience will be considered in another 
chapter, after we have discussed some of the perplexities of conscience 
in daily life. 


Q44 Goodness and Freedom 


As involving a more or less painful awareness of past 
deeds, with a realization of what we ought to have 
done, it is a direct moral incentive to better conduct. The 
self-depreciation, the dishonoring of the self which is in- 
volved in the deed judged to be wrong, suggests by con- 
trast self-realization. Conscience makes us aware that we 
are responsible, that the self that wills is decisive. But 
conscience is not merely negative or indirect; it involves 
positive certainty concerning the ideal, and, on occasion, 
yields a sense of joy in our productivity as making toward 
the ideal. Conscience gives stability, and so enables us 
to overcome the inner dividedness which is implied in all 
conduct that lowers the self. Although not a mere faculty, 
sense, intuition, or voice, and not even an inner light to 
be accepted without interpretation; each of these practical 
conceptions is a clue and should be retained by those who 
have found them of value. Conscience is of unlimited 
practical value, and a basis of guidance for all. 


REFERENCES 


PAULSEN, F., System of Ethics, trans., Bk. II, Chap. V. 

Tuitiy, F., Introduction to Ethics, 1900, Chaps. II, IIT. 

Muzes, 8. H., Hthics Descriptive and Explanatory, 1900, Chaps. 
V-VITI. 

MorrHeaD, J. H., Elements of Ethics, p. 70. 

Everett, W. G., Moral Values, Chap. IX, See. VI. 

Mackenziz, J. 8., Manual of Ethics, pp. 117, 182, 264. 

MaArTINEAU, J., Types of Ethical Theory, Vol. II, Bk. I, Chaps. 
V-VII. 

Dewey And Turts, Ethics, p. 317. 

STEPHEN, L., Science of Ethics, p. 306, foll. 

Sipewick, H., Methods of Ethics, p. 369. 

SerH, J., Ethical Principles, pp. 172, 179, 215. 

RASHDALL, H., The Theory of Good and Evil, Vol. I, p. 175. 


CHAPTER XVI 
THE PROBLEM OF FREEDOM 


Scope of the Question.—The question whether or not 
man possesses freedom of will appears to be exceptionally 
simple: man is either morally free or there is no moral 
order in the universe, consciousness yields direct assurance 
that we are free, and this unmistakable awareness of free- 
dom on our part is more conclusive than any argument. 
Yet the subject has proved far from simple. However, 
many times the matter has been apparently settled, new 
considerations have been brought forward. Analysis of 
the perennial issues is highly profitable for all who are 
deeply concerned to know human nature and human life. 
It is well, therefore, to try out the possibilities as if the 
problem were far from solution, including a brief study 
of fatalism, and an analysis of arguments for and against 
determinism. 

Fatalism.—There is little to be said about fatalism, 
which ordinarily means belief in a blind but fixed order 
of cosmic events, including all human deeds and their 
causes both internal and external, a series over which man 
has not the shghtest power.t Or, in place of a blind force, 
the assumption may be that some Power has irrevocably 
decreed all events whatsoever, hence that there is one Will 
in the universe. The implication in either case is that 
events are foredoomed and connected in such a way that 
a certain occurrence will take place whatever one can 
do. From the Mahomedan point of view the explanation 
offered is as brief as possible: ‘‘It was written.’’ Thus 
the Turkish soldier will inevitably die when fate has de- 
creed. The practical result is a courage which is terrible 

1Cf. Janet, Theory of Morals, trans., p. 365; Gizycki, Introd. to 
the Study of Ethics, trans., p. 197. 

245 


Q46 Goodness and Freedom 


in execution, also an indifference to human suffering and 
human life. Fatalism in milder forms in ancient times 
involved superstition, an effort by means of auguries to 
discover and prepare for events that were imminent. In 
more recent times, belief in astrology, palmistry, and in 
other schemes for discovering what is popularly called 
‘‘fate,’’ involves a hope that one can discover the way to 
a fortune partly within control, or avert a predicted dis- 
aster. Mild belief in fatalism also lurks under unthinking 
resignation and pessimism. The ethical significance of any 
belief in fatalism is found in the fact that man usually 
shows by his conduct what he really believes, and in prac- 
tice most men proceed on the assumption that their conduct 
will make a difference. Some advocates of free-will insist 
that determinism is always fatalism in disguise, but we 
shall find that determinism should be considered by itself. 
Science does not adopt fatalism, but formulates all its 
teachings in terms of the reign of law.? 
Predestination.—The theological doctrine that God, 
possessing all foreknowledge and power, chose beforehand 
both the elect and the reprobate, concerns us in part; since 
it involves the assumption that even the volitions of moral 
agents were by a decisive disposal included in this plan. 
All things being perfectly and equally within the divine 
view from eternity, any alleged secondary cause would be 
incompatible with the First Cause; divine knowledge is 
absolute, and so does not depend either on experience or 
on the unfolding of events according to a plan laid down. 
Knowing what God is apart from the world, we know what 
he decrees for all human beings in any world he may create. 
As there is foreknowledge of all human possibilities in 
accordance with decrees for each man, virtue is in reality 
due to divine grace. Human freedom is utterly impos- 
sible, even on the supposition that God permits lesser 
events which can be brought to a point where the good is 
triumphant; for since God is the sole cause of all that he 
infallibly forsees, it would be futile to discriminate between 


2For objections to fatalism, see G. S. Fullerton, 4 System of 
Metaphysics, 1904, p. 551. 


The Problem of Freedom Q47 


what he decrees and what he permits.* This may be taken 
to mean that there is no true creation at all, but simply 
God evolving in fixed necessary order; or the view that 
God founded the possibility of sin in the creative order, 
with the possibility of overcoming sin: ‘‘the possibility of 
a sinful decision . . . against God is the necessary presup- 
position of the kingdom of God as a kingdom of free moral 
persons. ’’ # 

It has been objected that this view deprives man of true 
reality as a moral being. For moral philosophers, not 
bound to sustain a theological system, the reality of the 
moral self, and with it the fact of evil is the foundation. 
Hence, predestination becomes practically a dead letter. 
The relentless logic of Calvin in developing this doctrine 
to its last conclusion was the utter undoing of the whole 
system, so far as it concerns ethics. 

Divine Omnipotence.—Yet there are certain implica- 
tions of the argument as it has appeared in history since 
the days of the doctrine of the fall of man that are still 
significant. The chief issue has turned upon the assump- 
tion that God is unconditionally omnipotent. Then the 
question is, How shall evil be accounted for? What of sin 
and the doctrine of eternal punishment? To start with 
the conviction that God is good is to conelude that he 
can not be the author of evil. How then shall evil be 
reconciled with divine omnipotence? Two views have been 
maintained: (1) the denial of the reality of evil, on the 
assumption that it is not positive and substantial but 
merely a privation of good, or the dark color that throws 
up the light, as Augustine called it; (2) the assumption 
of the right of the Creator to do whatever he wills with 
his creatures. 

Many have assumed that wrong-doing as related to the 
growth of human personalities is so distributed that a 
greater perfection exists as a result. So the attempt is 
made to reconcile evil with a view of the divine nature 
without pressing the argument far enough to see what it 


3 Cf. James Ward, The Realm of Ends, 1911, p. 311. 
4G. B. Foster, Christianity in its Modern Expression, 1921, p. 134. 


248 Goodness and Freedom 


involves. The difficulty becomes more serious with the 
attempt to reconcile the theory of eternal punishment with 
the notion that evil is merely negative, incidental to the 
working out of a higher order. Or, again, admitting that 
evil is real, the attempt may be made to free God from 
responsibility on the ground that the salvation of man 
depends on his own choice, which in turn is not prede- 
termined by God. The argument comes no nearer a solu- 
tion in this direction, for free-will as thus understood 
limits divine omnipotence; and partisans of the implied 
theology have been more inclined to limit the responsibility 
of man than the knowledge and authority of God. So the 


problem becomes that of the evil will, and the argument 


reverts to Augustine’s assumption that as a good God can 
not create a bad nature, and as the nature of wicked angels 
must then have been intrinsically good, the fall of the 
angels was due to an evil will whose cause can not be 
explained or even stated. 

The Bad Will.—It is clear that either the bad will must 
have an origin somewhere in the nature of beings whom 
God has created or else it is a force arising out of nothing 
which God ean not control. But, if God does not control 
evil but only permits it, despite an omnipotence which 
might prevent it, the situation is no better; and so the 
argument tends to reappear in favor of divine omnipotence 
and responsibility. If the difference between the good 
will and the bad will lies in the choice of good, and if this 
choice turns on the grace of God, the old-time conclusion 
follows that the good will is good because of a greater 
measure of divine grace, while the bad is such because this 
grace is lacking. The hypothesis of the uncaused bad will 
once abandoned, the position of the omnipotent God re- 
mains secure as ultimate author of the depravity of angels 
and men by predestination. 

Calvinism.—Where some would have evaded the con- 
clusion by dialectical compromise, Calvin drew the in- 
structive logical consequence: ‘‘those whom God _ passes 
by, He reprobates, and from no other cause than His 
determination to exclude them.’’ It seemed even to Calvin 


The Problem of Freedom 249 


‘an awful decree,’’ that a portion of the race was doomed 
to eternal torment. But on the assumption of divine fore- 
knowledge this foreappointment by God’s decree was in- 
evitable. For Calvin there could be no distinction between 
will and permission on God’s part. The human will was 
resolved into an instrument through which God worked. 
It mattered not that the world was ostensibly created for 
man’s benefit. Man merited punishment because cor- 
rupted by sin, and even though it seemed clear that God 
must then have created him corrupt, the relentless reply 
was that the potter has power over the vessel. God as 
supreme judge of the world, from whom issue all law and 
all right, can do no injustice; that is just which God 
wills, and if he determined at the outset on the fall of 
man it was because he foresaw that it would tend to the 
justification and glory of his name. So, as Hobhouse has 
argued, to follow Calvin would be to pass outside the 
range of ethics into a region where ethics as we under- 
stand the term no longer applies.® 

Ethics implies the conviction that the human will is no 
mere puppet of an overruling Power. If free-will means 
a limitation of divine power, there have been ethical 
thinkers in abundance as ready to be true to their logic 
as Calvin was to his. As no man ean be justly rewarded 
or punished unless he recognizes himself as the doer, 
responsibility rests with man, and this in turn implies 
identity of character. In place of the divine omnipotence 
to be maintained at any cost, God is regarded in the light 
of limited foreknowledge and power; the doctrine of 
eternal punishment is relegated to the history of theology, 
and with it predestination, its implied notion of the human 
will, merit, justice, and the like. It is no longer customary 
to insist on a theory of the relation of God to man based 
on an assumed abstraction regarding the divine nature 
and the conclusions which follow from this abstraction. 
The effort, ethically speaking, is to explain and interpret 
the world of experience which we actually know. More- 
over, it is out of the question to resolve so many matters 


5L. T. Hobhouse, Morals in Evolution, Vol. II, p. 135. 


250 Goodness and Freedom 


at once. An artificial situation was created by the assump- 
tion of the fall of man. The idea of God can be developed 
to its full extent without the notion of eternal punishment, 
or indeed any consequence save those results which come 
from educative progress toward the realization of a moral 
ideal. 

The Necessitarian View.—According to Spinoza all 
phenomena of the universe arise from the nature of things, 
as propositions concerning the triangle result from the 
nature of the triangle. This, the geometric view, involves 
a conception of God as Substance from whose nature are 
derived all attributes and all modes. Man/’s selfhood 
falls under the head of modes of the one Substance, under 
certain attributes, and so it is in every respect part of the 
necessary series. It is, indeed, possible for man to enter- 
tain illusory views concerning the sequences of events of 
which his life consists, but this is because of his ignorance. 
Thus arises the notion that men act with ends in view over 
which they seem to have power. Men deem themselves 
free because aware of their own volitions and desires, never 
even dreaming which, in their ignorance of the causes 
have led them to wish and desire as they do. But the 
notion of such causes, indeed the mere idea of final causes 
in general is a mere figment: God acts solely by the neces- 
sity of his nature, and all things are predetermined, not 
by free-will or absolute fiat, but through the nature of God 
as infinite power. The whole nature of man the individual 
is therefore absorbed by this essentially pantheistic con- 
ception in which only Substance, its attributes and modes 
remain, in the light of what Spinoza calls ‘‘adequate’’ 
knowledge. 

Determinism.—The prime difficulty with speculative 
systems is that their advocates assume to tell us, on the basis 
of partial knowledge, what is absol: ‘cly true of God or 
of the total universe, as if they possessed complete knowl- 
edge. Thus the conception of predestination or of rigid 
geometrical necessity is theoretically imposed on the struc- 
ture of life from above. But modern science, assuming 

6 Ethics, Part I, Appendix. 


The Problem of Freedom 251 


less, works into the structure of the universe from below, 
and arrives at a conception of law and order. Determin- 
ism involves the idea of the regn of law. Law is relative 
to the facts and conditions to be explained. The problem 
of freedom pertains to a certain field of experience within 
the universe of law and order. Inquiry into its nature 
scarcely begins in earnest therefore until absolutistic sys- 
tems, ignoring many facts and conditions of life as we 
find it, are classified for analysis in other connections, and 
the remaining problem is restated under the head of de- 
terminism. What is determined is not attributed to fate, 
blind necessity, an inscrutable Will that decrees all 
things, a Power which predestines, a Substance (as in 
Spinoza’s system), or an Absolute (as in the Hegelian 
system), from which all things follow. It is described 
and explained in its own realm. If all determining causes 
are regarded as exterior to the agent, so that man is a 
sheer creature of circumstances, all of which are necessary, 
then indeed determinism passes over into fatalism. But 
there is a less severe determinism which places the em- 
phasis on the agent as the determining cause and hence 
directs attention to circumstances in relation to character 
which when fully known involves personal inheritance, 
habits, instincts, defects, peculiarities, with the factors due 
to environment, the main consideration being conduct re- 
garded as calculable, on which predictions may be founded. 
Conduct expresses character as it exists at a given moment 
in the individual’s life, and character is determined by 
Sequences which have gone before and which need to be 
investigated in detail from various points of view. 

Cosmic Evidences.—The universe as a system manifests 
necessary sequences; every effect has its cause; nature is 
everywhere uniform, makes no ‘‘leaps,’’ is without gaps 
or interruptions; the sum of energies is constant, hence in 
case of transmutation from one form to another there is 
neither diminution nor increase. As there are no breaks 
in the causal sequenees, all changes are explicable by what 
went before. Man as part of nature is a product of these 
sequences: whatever activity he possesses belongs under the 


252 Goodness and Freedom 


same process, which goes on relentlessly without exception. 
A single real act of mind, breaking into the series of physi- 
eal events would involve change in the sum of energies. 
Mind then is without real causality, and the notion of 
freedom has been called ‘‘man’s grateful self-illusion.’’ 

The typical objection to this statement of man’s place 
in the cosmos is that while the implied conception of nature 
holds in its own field, as described by the physical sciences, 
a complete philosophy would consider the moral order 
of the universe in its own right. It is a simple matter for 
advocates of the mechanical conception of nature to rule 
out mental life on the ground that admission of mental 
causality as real would disrupt the theory. But, granted 
that the sum-total of cosmical energies is constant, it has 
yet to be shown what that energy is, and how it is related 
to ultimate reality. Recent discoveries concerning radiant 
energy have brought the conception of physical forces 
nearer the mental field, but science is not in a position to 
define energy in its ultimate form. Mechanical knowledge 
of nature does not warrant a generalization concerning 
other types of activity; tells us nothing about the realm of 
values. 

Evidences from Biology.—It is more usual to depend 
on facts from biology tending to show that man’s history 
as well as his present character is explicable as a product 
of heredity plus environment by means of natural selec- 
tion, use and disuse, and other evolutionary factors: man’s 
nature is a collection of instincts or prepotent reflexes, dis- 
positions, and habits. The functioning of these elements 
of his nature can be mechanically deseribed with reference 
to reactions upon stimuli, acquired modes of behavior, that 
is, modes of the organism; and the inference seems wholly 
justifiable that mental life is determined by these reflexes 
and other modes of behavior. The power of heredity is 
seen, for example, in degenerate families, traceable to an 
original pair of defectives, in contrast with families de- 
rived from excellent stock.?. The power of environment is 
observable in the tenement, the sweat-shop, the prison; in 

7See H. H. Goddard, The Kallikak Family, 1920. 


The Problem of Freedom 253 


contrast with the farm, the estate, the well-situated home. 
When the issues are narrowed down to a study of the brain, 
the transition is easy to a mechanical view of life as a 
whole, which seems to preclude the possibility of freedom.® 

The objection is that the argument that man is a product 
of heredity and environment, biologically speaking, does 
not reach far enough to apply to the question of moral 
freedom. The description of man as a behavior-being is 
but one approach to the study of human nature, and the 
type of psychology founded on or identified with biology, 
by which the argument is justified, is only one of several 
types. Mental life may still be regarded as having a value 
of its own, even from the point of view of biological con- 
siderations. Morally speaking, it is never a mere question 
of inherited tendencies which we actually possess, the en- 
vironment in which we find ourselves; but a question of 
the use to which we put our powers, what we accomplish 
by aid of our capacities, the opportunities we select, the 
social changes in which we participate according to our 
standards of what ought to be. These are indeterminate 
factors. If on ethical grounds we conclude that man is in 
a measure free, the descriptive sciences must take human 
conduct as well as human ‘‘behavior’’ into account. All 
the factors of organic selection have not yet been deter- 
mined. Psychical selection may be a factor, and the whole 
course of evolution may be ultimately psychical in origin. 

Sociological Evidences.—Further support is given the 
deterministic argument by analysis of social influences 
singled out under the head of imitation, suggestion, cus- 
tom, fashion, tradition, public opinion, and other factors; 
all these taken as a whole apparently account for man as 
produced by his social environment. Sometimes the argu- 
ment takes the form of the assumption that man is a prod- 
uct of ‘‘the group mind.’’ The prime result in any case 
is a collection of facts with regard to marriage, divorce, 
suicide, so classified that statistics show what types of 
phenomena are to be expected: conduct once attributed to 


8 For a discussion of the intermediate field between biology and 
psychology, see, for example, 8S. Paton, Human Behavior, 1921. 


Q54 Goodness and Freedom 


free-will is explained by social laws, and the given social 
situation, in quantitative terms. Sociology apparently 
establishes determinism, although this is not its purpose. 
The phrase ‘‘economic determinism’’ passes current among 
observers of social groups who describe man as a product 
of the conditions under which he lives, in the given social 
order. The evidences seem to be cumulative and to war- 
rant the generalization that man is not free. Sociologists, 
social psychologists, and economists may indeed be cautious 
in their generalizations: less cautious are those who antici- 
pate the conclusion at which the social sciences as a whole 
may arrive. 

So far, however, the social sciences do not reach the end. 
All that these sciences tell us about imitation, suggestion, 
and other factors of man’s social life, including statistics 
about suicide and divorce, may be true in its own field; 
while the moral field remains to be considered in relation 
to the findings of social science. Through his conscience, 
his moral judgments, his moral conduct man is brought 
into contact with his total social environment. To substan- 
tiate determinism it would be necessary to show that all 
elements of the moral life—moral obligation, moral law, 
duty, conscience, the sense of responsibility, consciousness 
of freedom—are explained to the limit by social conditions, 
or social evolution as a whole. Social predictions are not 
far-reaching and exact enough to be conclusive, from an 
ethical point of view. Even if sociology could by its sta- 
tistical method prove that all human choices are uniform, 
it would not follow that men are not free in the specific 
sense required by the facts of moral experience. The social 
sciences do not profess to take into full account the con- 
sciousness, the inner life which accompanies man’s experi- 
ence in relation to social conditions. 

Physiological Determinism.—The evidences thus far 
considered regard man in too extensive a way to meet the 
direct issues. So in the transition from biology and the 
social sciences to psychology emphasis is sometimes placed 
more specifically on physiological data, such as the effect 
of the nervous system, the molecular structure of the 


The Problem of Freedom 255 


brain; the variations due to nutrition, blood-supply, glan- 
dular activity, accidents, diseases, abnormal behavior. 
Mental life seems to be a kind of passive accompaniment 
of brain-states, as if man were a mere automaton, his con- 
sciousness somehow running parallel with cerebral events 
but absolutely without power over so much as one of these 
events. On the hypothesis that our mental life merely 
accompanies cerebral activity without the slightest partici- 
pation in it, the scientific view of the conservation of 
energy is confirmed, and so once more the evidence is 
cumulative. 

As it seems inconceivable that consciousness should 
actuate a molecule the conclusion readily follows that mind 
is absolutely determined. Physicians and specialists in 
various types of abnormal mental life, psycho-analysts, and 
also many psychotherapists ordinarily agree in assuming 
determinism on physiological grounds; and the term 
‘‘moral life’’ if used at all simply refers to a higher phase 
of conduct still regarded as determined in every respect 
by the bodily organism.® Thus determinism is a practical 
postulate which medical practice supposedly confirms. 

Evidence from Psychology.—Physiological psychology 
proceeds on the assumption that the normal and abnormal 
conditions to which the brain is subject are those under 
which consciousness is possible. Every mental process is 
said to be determined by a cerebral process, as there is 
‘‘no psychosis without neurosis’’; and so the various men- 
tal principles are accounted for by reference to habit as 
a cerebral law, by association, and in terms of products 
of bodily sensation. Theories divide at this point. Some 
psychologists maintain that mind is an automaton, others 
that it runs parallel in its activity with corresponding 
states in the brain, while a third point of view involves 
interaction between mind and brain.?° But on any of these 
hypotheses determinism appears to follow. Although brain 
and mind interact, the mental series must have a cause, 


9 For example, see P. Dubois, The Psychic Treatment of Nervous 
Disorders, trans., 1906. 
10 See C, A. Strong, Why the Mind Has a Body, 1903. 


256 Goodness and Freedom 


and this is said to be readily traceable to preceding psycho- 
physical events and conditions. 

A eauseless act of will appears impossible: decisions in- 
volve motives, these have had a history, and if the motives 
are not supplied by the act of choice they must be due to 
some other source. There appears to be no psychological 
basis for what is called ‘‘the liberty of indifference.’’ To 
fall back on the notion of absolute chance would be to 
evade the question. Again, as Horne has pointed out, 
‘*cehoice is likely to be in line with habit. This is the more 
true as time advances. It is possible to break a habit of 
long standing by effort, but it is not probable.’’ Habit, as 
we well know, limits the ease and efficiency of our choice, 
and we readily follow in the line of least resistance. 
Again, choice is limited by the capacities supplied by 
heredity: these can be developed but not augmented, our 
capacities set limits to successful choices. Thus, every 
one chooses within the limits of his capacities, by what 
opportunity offers, the range of opportunities being very 
small with most of us. Even the genius is dependent on 
the opportunities which yield occasions for his selective- 
ness. 

Psychology seems to offer no explanation of our choices 
and the conditions of choice except in terms of preceding 
events and circumstances, that is, those which have pro- 
duced the given habits, capacities, and motives brought 
into relation with the opportunities which disclose what 
we take to be alternatives. The entire psychical process 
with its conations implying instinctive dispositions, im- 
pulses, tendencies to imitation, suggestion, dependence on 
habit, together with transitory influences due to fatigue, 
the interplay of varying experiences—this whole process 
enters into the account and determines the result. Psy- 
chological considerations readily sustain the view that 
choice always depends on the strongest motive, whether 
that motive be dependent on hereditary or environmental 
influences. It might be claimed that in acting upon a 
given motive we ‘‘feel ourselves to be free,’’ but the de- 
terminist’s reply is that a part of the causal chain lies 


The Problem of Freedom 257 


within our consciousness, and what we feel is the phase of 
experience (in itself determined) in which we appear to 
decide the course of action which follows. Psychology dis- 
closes no detachable ego, but only a collection of processes, 
the total train of thought: the mind and its contents are 
the same. 

Ethical Evidences.—Bringing all these considerations 
together, the argument seems convincing beyond all ques- 
tion, especially when restated in ethical terms. The terms 
reward and blame, accountability, conscience, character, 
seem to imply moral freedom; but the determinist is ready 
to admit that man possesses character in contrast with 
disposition, and that acts attributable to character imply 
conscience and responsibility. A man’s character de- 
termines his acts, he is responsible because the act is his 
own; he so acted because with such a character his deed 
would naturally be precisely what we find it to have been. 
If he were free, his conduct could not be depended on, 
he would be an irresponsible agent; society can depend 
on him precisely because he is a man of a certain character. 
Indeed, predictability of conduct is said to be the condi- 
tion of man’s association with his fellowmen. This does 
not deprive him of anything precious; the higher the de- 
velopment, the more sure and extensive the prediction. 
Conduct in the moment when it expresses character implies 
no ambiguous future. Our whole scheme of rewards and 
punishments turns upon this accountability. The more 
constancy of character we have the better, the higher our 
state of moral development the more surely people can 
depend on us; and we are to be congratulated on the pos- 
session of constancy. As matter of fact, people are pleased 
on the whole when onlookers make predictions implying 
constancy, honesty, fidelity, loyalty, and similar virtues. 
Given more enlightenment, it will be more and more sure 
that we will act in accordance with it. 

Determinists also claim that there is abundant room for 
the feeling of remorse and shame: we feel remorse pre- 
cisely because we are aware that an act condemned as 
wrong sprang from our character, and because in com- 


258 Goodness and Freedom 


parison with another standard it is inferior. The act did 
not spring from ‘‘some unmotived freak of willing,’’ but 
from one’s very self, from an ignoble motive. In this as 
in all other cases deeds attributable to the self are wholly 
explicable. Our character, fully known, including heredi- 
tary traits, personal history to date, habits, proclivities, 
elements of weakness and of strength, defects and pecu- 
liarities, then our conduct would be predictable in minute 
detail. A being looking on and knowing all these factors 
would be able to foretell the total result. So-called chance 
is referred to only so far as knowledge of character and 
circumstance is incomplete. All the arguments in favor 
of determinism are reducible in fact to the causal argu- 
ment: the world is a causal system in which all things, per- 
sons, events, belong together, although the conception of 
causality is enlarged to include not only physical heredity 
and environment, various social factors, physiological con- 
siderations, and psychological evidences, but also a view of 
final causes, for instance, a theological conception imply- 
ing a plan for each human being. The ultimate reality in 
any case is sovereign over all, all 1s gwen, implied in the 
original elements or original energy, so that there is no 
novelty or chance in the universe, no individual initiative 
or any other factor breaking into the system. 

The Psycho-physical Argument.—The argument in 
favor of automatism conflicts with what is known concern- 
ing the whole process of evolution, namely, that organs 
that are useful survive while those that are useless atrophy. 
The fact that consciousness appears to be efficacious is evi- 
dence that it really is so; if it had been useless it would 
long ago have been eliminated.1: The truth is that con- 
Sclousness has increased in scope and power, it is plainly 
useful to the organism in the biological sense of the word, 
it selects what is useful in the light of organic well-being, 
regarded as effteacious it is at least one of the causes of 
successful action. It has proved impossible to reduce all 
our activities to the reflex type of behavior. The conten- 
tion that consciousness is a mere product of the brain is 

11 See W. James, Psychology, 1890, Vol. I, Chap. V. 


The Problem of Freedom 959 


offset, so some critics hold, by the fact that we are imme- 
diately sure of the existence of consciousness; whereas 
we know the nature of brain-events only by inference from 
the data of consciousness: it remains to be proved that 
the existence of which we are less directly certain causes 
those events of which we are immediately aware, notably in 
case of a moral decision. 

Physiological and psychological results may then be ac- 
cepted as far as they go, and yet the argument for deter- 
minism may fall short of certainty, when the corrections 
and additions are made. A given hypothesis, such as 
psycho-physical parallelism, is assumed for the sake of 
precise scientific description within a certain field; but it 
may be necessary to reject the notion that there is no 
interaction between mind and brain, when it is a question 
of real causes and moral values. Interactionist psychology 
puts the whole matter in a different light.1? If we dis- 
cover as a fact that conduct follows upon a moral decision 
and is carried out in an external deed, we are bound to 
accept the fact although unable as yet to square it with 
our theory of the physical universe. There is strong em- 
pirical evidence in favor of interaction between mind and 
brain. The contention that every act involves a motive 
would not be disconcerting to a partisan of free-will, since 
freedom obtains within very restricted limits. The de- 
terminist position should not be regarded as established 
unless it ean be proved that not so much as one free voli- 
tion ean occur. Again, determinists must account in a per- 
fectly satisfactory way for man’s consciousness that he 
actually is free. From the point of view of one of the 
prevailing types of psychology freedom exists if involved in 
certain acts of attention (James), said to be the vital factor 
in mental life: this is as far as psychology may be expected 
to go. 

If mental energy be a part of world-energy, the case 
would appear to be still stronger. The fact that we use 
our energy so as to seem to be efficient, as if we were 


12 Professor James, for example, firmly believed in freedom; see 
his The Will to Believe. 


260 Goodness and Freedom 


really deciding issues and accomplishing some end, is re- 
garded by many as capital evidence that consciousness is 
actually efficacious. Consciousness can be thus useful to 
the organism without conflicting with the lesser functions, 
which may well be subservient to it. The habits and 
functions of the brain and nervous system may be in part 
resultants of the uses to which the mind has put the or- 
ganism. It has not been proved that the brain influences 
the mind without in turn being influenced by it, for ex- 
ample, in the formation of habits with whose purposes the 
brain as such has nothing to do. It is at least a possibility 
that mind is a truly efficient cause. The contention that 
it is a mere spectator is based on an interpretation of 
events in the cosmos which at best is but one among several 
hypotheses in as good standing as the mechanical philoso- 
phy. 
Ethical Objections.—It is difficult to persuade advo- 
cates of free-will that the sense of responsibility is ac- 
counted for by determinism. It may be granted that man 
is for the most part determined, and some would add that 
eonduct can be mostly predicted, namely, the conduct of 
others. But one is unable to predict one’s own conduct 
to the full: the consciousness persists that circumstances 
become our own by actual acceptance of them, and this con- 
sciousness is worthy of consideration in its own right. 
Again, determinists are unable to decide precisely what 
a man’s character is as a determining cause in one’s self 
or in another person, since ‘‘character’’ is in part at least 
a changing quantity. In any event, a person is likely to 
contend that deeds springing from character have reasons, 
not “‘causes’’ for being. Complete predictability in terms 
of causality would call for perfect, all-seeing intelligence. 
Determininism must then fall back on probability, which 
might be interpreted to imply freedom. 

The Element of Attention.—In any event we are left 
with our practical consciousness, with the conviction that 
praise and blame have real meaning, that our conduct 
is rightly attributed to the self as responsible. We have 
the assurance, also which James’ psychology gives us in 


The Problem of Freedom 261 


its emphasis on attention as the acme of mental life, the 
basis of will, the heart of one’s self-conscious reflection. 
However limited our power, we are at least able to observe 
the play of thought and to exercise selective interest. At- 
tention can not be long sustained, but an instant may 
suffice to emphasize one alternative, and by inclining toward 
this alternative one may cast the die, or by turning from 
its opposite one may remove it; then the results will fol- 
low according to deterministic description. In a possible 
instance the arguments pro and con might be so nicely 
balanced that it would not be from any point of view 
evident what is going to happen; yet the slightest act of 
attention might settle the issues. After a decision has been 
made, it is possible to reason back to the motive which 
is regarded as decisive and to argue that it was therefore 
the strongest motive. It might as easily follow, in view of 
considerations pertaining to one’s mental history and one’s 
character, that one could not have acted otherwise. But 
the case never looks so clear in advance, or from the point 
of view of the unforeseeable element of the situation. 
Personal Acts.—The act as mine is a new one, a de- 
eisive combination of factors which as such might have 
been old. I may stand in the presence of alternatives, one 
of which is the stronger (the lower), under the probabil- 
ity that I shall act upon it; but I may make the higher 
alternative the stronger one by the act of attention where- 
with I identify it with my better self, my moral ideal. 
The ideal consciousness may thus become stronger than the 
present determining consciousness which psychology 
analyzes with such convincing precision. I select, I attend 
to the moral alternative by virtue of my own inner mean- 
ing or purpose. I may rise to the occasion even when every- 
thing points to the triumph of the lower motive, which, to 
all appearances, is the stronger up to the moment the die 
is east. If causality may be said to enter in, it is ideal 
or creative causality: my moral endeavor is inspired by 
an ideal towards which I strive even when there seems no 
possibility of success. Although my act does indeed ex- 
press my character, it is to be noted that my character is 


962 Goodness and Freedom 


partly the result of past choices, and that the creative 
activity of character is not expressed through a fixed mold, 
but is partly in process. I am partly in the making, en- 
deavoring to remake myself in part. I may in time tend 
to act more and more uniformly, because of the selection 
of desirable traits and the lapsing of the undesirable, the 
triumph of my chosen universe of desire. But the more 
unity of character I possess the greater my free creative 
possibility, despite the fact that my character in general 
is more constant, hence more predictable (by others). 

Thus the more persistently we follow up the psychologi- 
cal considerations by interpretation of which determinism 
is apparently established, the more light we gain on the 
development of character through the changing processes 
of attention which at least partly aid in producing it. If 
character is a collection of tendencies, some of which are 
being selectively accentuated because more acutely at- 
tended to, while others are waning because attention turns 
away from them as undesirable, then the possibility that 
through attention real freedom is exercised is established 
on excellent ground. Attention by increment appears to 
be the central factor in instances where on occasion one 
does the unexpected. The remarkable apparent changes 
in character recorded by those who have made an acute 
study of conversion imply acts of decisive attention, 
whether the regenerative experience seems to involve the 
creation of what is uncritically called a ‘‘new will’’ or 
simply to bring into the foreground possibilities of con- 
duct previously held in abeyance. Again, it may be an 
instance of the faithful bank cashier who after long years 
of service turns thief. 

Moral Decisions.—All that is needed to meet determin- 
ism at this the decisive point is a real possibility of either 
rising or falling in the scale in the face of given alterna- 
tives. Repentance, regeneration, virtue, and responsibility 
must be at least as real as sin, must be as surely attrib- 
utable to the self, as emphatically human, even though 
man does little more in the presence of the highest alterna- 
tives than to accept, to give assent. Real meaning enters 


The Problem of Freedom 263 


human experience with such decisions, real opportunities 
are put before men to select possible lines of action neither 
foreknown nor decreed, also real codperation with a divine 
purpose which leaves room for man to accomplish his part. 
What is lost in giving up the old conception, with its 
idea of the divine sovereignty and omnipotence, its de- 
terminate ‘‘plan’’ for each soul (as a fixed entity), is more 
than compensated for by an appeal to life as still in the 
making. This ethical pluralism of wills capable of doing 
their part is more nearly in accord with the facts regard- 
ing our relatively independent existence, amidst conflicts, 
surrounded by opportunities inviting decision, calling for 
real choice, contributory conduct, the acceptance of re- 
sponsibility. 

Heredity and Environment.—Summarizing the argu- 
ments. for determinism, we note that prevailing views of 
heredity and environment are far from definite. If, with 
Cattell, we define heredity as ‘‘the resemblances among 
individuals due to their common origin or germ plasm,’’ we 
have so far a conception of ‘‘the congenital equipment or 
original organization of the individual.’’?% But what of 
environment? How far does the term apply, as we trace 
influences said to be external and eventually come to the 
brain with its sphere of influences on the mind? There is 
plainly a third term between heredity and environment, 
sometimes referred to as ‘‘function,’’ again as travail, i.e., 
(1) famille, (2) travail, (3) lieu. It is plain, as Cattell 
maintains, that experience, or this middle term, is not 
coordinate with congenital equipment and environment, 
but dependent on them. If by the term ‘‘nature’’ we mean 
(with Galton) ‘‘the sum of inborn qualities’? which in- 
cludes also ‘‘those individual variations’’ which are due to 
causes other than heredity, and which act before birth; 
we then have other factors to classify under ‘‘nurture,”’ 
and still need our third term to describe what the indi- 
vidual makes of nature plus nurture. The great difficulty 
consists in separating organism from environment. Cat- 
tell holds that if in the case of Darwin and Lincoln, born 

13 The Science Monthly, May, 1924, p. 509. 


264 Goodness and Freedom 


on the same day, the two infants had been exchanged, 
there would have been no Darwin and no Lineoln. We may 
then say that ‘‘what a man can do is determined by his 
native equipment, what he does do by the circumstances 
of his life.’’ It then becomes a question of that alertness, 
that ability which psychologists have recently been trying 
to estimate in terms of intelligence tests. 

The Moral Situation—The higher up in the scale we 
go, the less able we are to gauge what we call intelligence 
by quantitative tests. So too it might be said that the 
higher we ascend the less able we are to explain, determin- 
istically, a man of genius like Darwin or Lincoln. The 
middle term for which we contend the more insistently, 
when our point of view becomes ethical, includes not 
merely ‘‘function,’’ the ability to work, the alertness which 
enables a man to become highly efficient, but also character 
as partly created by the way in which a man exercises 
his ability. The deterministic element includes certain 
lines laid down for each man, his particular congenital 
equipment, native disposition, temperament plus the force 
of circumstances which we eall ‘‘environment’’ in brief, 
including under that head a very wide classification of in- 
fluences. These are the lines along which to develop char- 
acter by the aid of opportunity. The sphere of moral de- 
velopment is then rather definitely marked out, and the 
more closely we analyze man’s moral situation the more 
emphasis we are likely to put on evidences making for 
determinism. Yet as the physical individual varies in the 
combination worked out between congenital equipment and 
environment, so the moral task differs with each, the moral 
integration involves alternatives even within an extremely 
limited sphere. It is not a question of hereditary or en- 
vironmental influences in general, but of the good and 
evil presented to the particular individual in question in 
a given situation. It is for the individual to create a 
character amidst this given situation.14 If the determin- 
ing causes were wholly from without, due to constraint, 
violence, natural contingencies and necessities, there would 

14 Cf. Seth, op. cit., p. 370. 


The Problem of Freedom 265 


plainly be no freedom, man would be at best a passive 
spectator. But the determining moral causes are looked 
upon as within the agent himself, in any given situation, 
that is, his instincts and tendencies, his dynamic abilities, 
his spontaneity. 

The description of the elements that enter into our moral 
experience can not be regarded as complete till we have 
given full recognition both to the consciousness of freedom 
and to the experience of meeting moral issues. In the 
foregoing discussion we have tried to give determinism the 
fullest hearing, even at the risk of seeming to prove that 
man is without freedom. We have found the argument 
breaking down from one point of view after another, with 
increasing evidence that moral freedom is real. But thus 
far our discussion has been chiefly negative. It remains to 
consider the question more affirmatively, and to define if 
we can precisely what freedom means. 


REFERENCES 


Fuuierton, G. 8., A System of Metaphysics, 1904, Chap. 
XXXII. 

Warp, J., The Realm of Ends, 1911, Chap. XIII. 

Brrason, H., Time and Free Will, tr. by F. L. Pogson, 1911, 
Chap. ITT. 

JAMES, W., The Will to Believe, 1897 (“The Dilemma of Deter- 
minism”’). 

Mitt, J. S., Logic, Bk. VI, Chap. V. 

Parmer, G. H., The Problem of Freedom, 1911, Chap. IT (bibli- 
ography, p. 208). 

LreicuTon, J. A., The Field of Philosophy, 1923, pp. 339, 400, 
413, 426. 

TuItiy, F., Introduction to Ethics, 1900, Chap. XI. 


CHAPTER XVII 
THE NATURE OF FREEDOM 


Freedom of the Self.—Although the question of free- 
dom is one of the most famous of ethical inquiries, some 
writers merely assume moral freedom as the central pos- 
tulate; while others, strange to relate hold that the subject 
is unimportant, or maintain that it is a metaphysical ques- 
tion to be taken up in a general study of first principles. 
Once it seemed solely a question of free-will, as if the 
will were separable from the rest of our nature. But will 
is now regarded as inseparable from the person willing, 
thinking, acting, paying attention, making effort; hence 
the issues turn upon the real nature of the self which 
attends, strives, selects, or casts the die. As it is the self 
that is somehow free, that is, free in one respect at least, 
it is well to try out the issues anew from various stand- 
points, even at the risk of complicating the whole problem. 

To assert that the self is free is not to affirm that the 
will is without history or content in the shape of desires, 
or to deny that the contents of volition have had causes. 
Bearing in mind the results of the preceding chapter, we 
admit to the full the facts of body-mind relationship. The 
self faces the sequences of brain-events and mental events 
as if for the most part it were a passive spectator. The 
sources of its freedom are not to be found by looking for 
a possible break in these sequences from the point of view 
of ordinary causality. If the self is in some sense a free 
or efficient cause, this causality is of a higher type, and 
the ground of freedom is to be looked for within the self. 
Causal efficiency of this type is real if it occur once, if the 
single occurrence, however slight, is our own act, and al- 
though the occasion may never recur, the act never be 
repeated. 

Meanings of the Term.—In connection with the effort 

266 


The Nature of Freedom 267 


to think out the question of causality to the end, it is well 
to narrow down the meanings of the term freedom as per- 
sistently as possible. The term is used in general with 
reference to citizenship, birth, the rights of man as a 
physical being over plant and animal life. Freer than 
the airplane or any other mechanical invention of man 
in its movements is the flight of the bird. Freedom in this 
sense involves harmony with natural forces, adaptation 
to environment, with a power of unrestrained motion, sub- 
ject to changes in wind and weather, conditions under 
which food is procured, attacks from other birds, results 
due to various physical contingencies. Man as an infant is 
most nearly helpless of any being possessing significant 
potentialities. As he grows older man depends more and 
more on alertness and skill, offsets the greater strength 
of animals, contends successfully with forces which might 
interfere with his freedom—forces as minute as germs, 
as massive as the cold in polar regions, as swift as the 
lightning, as capricious as currents of air threatening an 
airplane, as violent as storms at sea—and brings the sciences 
to play in his effort to make his command over nature the 
more secure. Freedom in the sense of adaptation to the 
nature of things is not however what we mean by moral 
freedom unless, with the Stoics, we extend the idea of 
‘the nature of things’’ to include what we call the moral 
order, and carefully consider those conditions of the inner 
life which show conclusively what is within man’s power, 
and what is beyond his power. 

Inner Freedom.—Moral freedom, pertaining to the 
inner life, plainly does not mean liberty to do anything 
one likes. It may be understood to mean either a power 
to act in and from one’s self, without restraint or com- 
pulsion due to a limiting power; or, liberty to choose be- 
tween alternatives, not created by the self, but given to 
the self through experience from within and without. 
Moral conduct does not spring out of the air, without 
relation to character and circumstances, not even when 
most free. The choice may be in some cases merely a 
decisive moment in a process of quiet reflection, the act 


268 Goodness and Freedom 


of will may be almost indistinguishable from thought, since 
deliberation and decision are practically one. Introspec- 
tion does not accompany our moral decisions, informing 
us when and how we cast the die; for consciousness is 
absorbed either in weighing the pros and cons or in con- 
templation of the end to be attained through adoption of 
certain means. 

Ideal Freedom.—Through freedom as a capacity or 
power I may be free to choose between ethical self-realiza- 
tion and servitude to vicious impulses: ‘‘he who consents 
to passion, puts himself under the yoke,’’ ‘‘a brute I might 
have been, but would not sink in the scale.’’ But from 
the point of view of freedom as an ideal I am not as free 
to follow a vicious impulse as a moral incentive; since 1 
am freest when I express my highest, best self: I am in 
servitude when I sin. Since sin is disorganization, it does 
not express the whole self, despite the fact that in giving 
himself to a sinful act man for the moment boldly asserts 
himself and apparently enjoys his freedom. I appear to 
be most free when I am most fully, that is, truly and con- 
sistently myself, howbeit when most free I most fully obey 
what I believe to be the moral law. Freedom in any lesser 
sense is not a capacity to exult in, but a power to exercise 
as little as possible. 

The Element of Chance.—If{ we define freedom as 
power to choose between alternatives, one of which will, we 
hope, make for an ideal end, it is plain that freedom would 
have no meaning were there no judgment that one alterna- 
tive is higher, the other lower. Nor would freedom mean 
anything unless there were duality, uncertainty, chance, 
that is, an ambiguous future. Chance exists at least rela- 
tively, despite the fact that all events are causally con- 
nected in nature, that is, chance as a negative term imply- 
Ing inability to forecast the falling of the dice, amid 
causal paths so numerous that we are unable to follow 
them. Chance in this its (1) subjective sense has been 
compared with what, to us, is (2) objective chance in the 
ease of a stone thrown at a mark which hits a bird that 
unexpectedly flies across the field of vision and is killed: 


The Nature of Freedom 269 


chance being the concurrence of the flight of the bird and 
the flight of the stone. As neither line of events in such a 
case is premonitory of the other, so the coordination of 
activities combining to produce alternatives faced in the 
moment of moral refiection may lie outside each group, 
neither having been intentionally brought into relation 
with the other. items of experience which we put under 
the head of chance, luck, accident, do not exclude ideal 
causality ; a planless concurrence is compatible with a moral 
consciousness which turns the occasion to its own account. 
External events frequently coincide with what we regard 
as moral opportunities, but without any connection so far 
as we know, although a teleological relationship is some- 
times claimed by those who uncritically assume a divine 
*‘plan’’ to cover such instances. 

More cautious observers merely assert that lines of se- 
quence coneurring may be turned to account by those who 
are alert enough to ‘‘take the current when it serves,’’ al- 
though moral opportunity has often been interpreted to 
mean an occasion for triumph where circumstance is not 
favorable but unfavorable, where there is not even an ap- 
pearance of ‘‘luck.’’ In actual life we often find one line 
of sequence following its own series of events without re- 
gard to any other, each making headway in its own direc- 
tion, like a body continuing in motion unless brought to 
a standstill by another body in motion or at rest. Thus 
it has been remarked that lightning strikes a saint as read- 
ily as a sinner. Nature exhibits a law often brought in 
sharpest contrast with what we call moral values. Nature, 
‘‘red in tooth and claw,’’ exhibits stern necessity, struggle 
for existence on a level sometimes interpreted to be non- 
moral. From an ethical point of view our interest centers 
in coexistences which bear no discoverable causal relation 
with the events which physical science describes. Thus 
the Trtanic, rushing to its destruction by severest contact 
with an iceberg in mid-Atlantie, is at the same time bearer 
of men and women who, swiftly selecting between their 
own safety and self-sacrifice or moral victory, add to the 
moral values of the world by their deeds of heroism. 


270 Goodness and Freedom 


Statistics based on probabilities do not take individual 
initiatives into account. The alleged strongest motive, de- 
termining a sequence, seems to imply that no other se- 
quence is possible. To the question how it is known that 
this is the strongest motive, there is no positive answer, 
no answer at all save the one already suggested, namely, 
by seeing the action ensue and drawing an inference to 
the effect that because the deed was done ‘‘therefore’’ it 
followed hard upon the strongest motive. There is no 
means of rescuing the strongest motive from the context, 
and putting it to the test of actual experience. 

Choice.—In the presence of alternatives, I judge that 
one will make for what I take to be right, and remove 
the ambiguous future. In behalf of this, the ideal, I 
choose. The resulting action carries my choice into execu- 
tion. Although my sense of obligation to choose is strong, 
I realize that I was not compelled to make just that choice 
and no other. The action by which I commit myself to a 
choice is far from being capricious; it implies a real need 
for a solution, a contrast between my actual self as in part 
describable, hesitating it may be, where choice seems im- 
perative but hazardous, and my ideal as attainable. De- 
cision may seem so great a risk that I may for the moment 
procrastinate, yet my consciousness also yields the convic- 
tion that I should take the risk. In making the decision, 
I am striving toward an end, and this the present moment 
of my striving I identify with many other moments, all 
of which I hope may foster my central purpose in life. 
To all appearances then I am making a very genuine effort 
to settle a conflict. There are vital interests at heart. To 
declare that I really can not decide but must ‘‘let events 
take their course,’’ as people uncritically say, is like affirm- 
ing that I have no self at all, that motives simply conflict 
and the strongest decides, leaving the self a passive spec- 
tator. “‘To talk of motives conflicting of themselves is as 
absurd as to talk of commodities competing in the absence 
of traders,’’ says Ward.2 

The direct appeal to consciousness discloses the econvic- 

1 Op. cit., p. 290. 


The Nature of Freedom 271 


tion that we can choose because we ‘‘ought’’ to decide. I 
feel myself free in the presence of alternatives, some of 
which must be cut off, that I may select one of two re- 
maining in closest competition. If I try to be evasive by 
refusing to assume responsibility, I nonetheless become re- 
sponsible by permitting events to follow what I call their 
course, tacitly yielding where I might have been more 
affirmative and more rational. 

_ Awareness of Freedom.—Each man learns these vivid 
contrasts with their unmistakable implications from ex- 
perience rather than by means of theory. In fact, the con- 
sciousness of freedom is unique, is a fact discovered by 
each moral agent, verifying what others before him have 
learned by direct observation and analysis of conscious- 
ness.2, Even people who try to explain away freedom are 
constrained to admit what is called ‘‘the sense of freedom”’ 
as a fact to be accounted for. It is at least an illusion, or 
a delusion which we are all under and which, because we 
are all aware of it, is the equivalent of reality. The con- 
sciousness of freedom has proved to be a remarkably per- 
sistent fact through the ages. It looks forward into the 
dawning present, betokening a future which, so one is 
acutely aware, must in some respects be of one’s own mak- 
ing; and into the past with its reminders that we might 
have acted differently. If this consciousness be merely 
apparent, it has been astonishingly persistent in the face 
of ever-increasing evidences for determinism. Moreover, 
belief in freedom fits in the facts of moral experience, by 
rational interpretation, far better than the hypothesis that 
freedom is self-illusion. This consciousness is involved in 
the whole working scheme of human society. We both feel 
and express regret even in the light of larger knowledge 
of all the factors, in the coolness of later reflection. We 
persistently feel guilt. We carry a sense of avoidable 
wrong. ‘‘Can you forgive yourself,’’ asks Horne, ‘‘for 
the petulant word that escaped you yesterday on the 
ground that you couldn’t have helped it? . . . On the 


2 Palmer, The Problem of Freedom, Chap. III. 


272 Goodness and Freedom 


basis of determinism one could well bewail his fate .. . 
but could not repent of his sin.’’ 

Our consciousness yields no less conclusively a sense of 
the irrevocable. We are well aware that we can not re- 
turn to the same circumstances, either to act differently 
or to prove by a repetition of the deed in question what 
was possible or impossible. If there is no empirical proof 
of our freedom, there is also no final proof that our act 
was determined. Left once more with probability, we may 
still regard life as a challenge, with a balance in favor of 
belief in freedom. In fact, it is partly from our sense of 
moral freedom that our conceptions of freedom in other 
connections has arisen. 

Ideal Causality— It has frequently been pointed out 
that our perception of activity, with the implication that 
we can accomplish results, is the source of the widespread 
conviction that final causality exists, that action towards 
ends really takes place. ‘‘If,’’ says Ward, ‘‘we ask a man 
why in a new and strange situation he acts as he does, 
it will hardly oceur to him to explain his conduct by de- 
scribing to us the immediately preceding situation. The 
answer he is likely to give, and that we naturally expect, 
will consist rather in describing the end at which he aims 
and the value that it has for him, as the reasons for his 
determination.’’? Things, we know, have necessary con- 
nection according to law; what occurs today is the conse- 
quence of what went before, and the only way to explain 
natural events is by an appeal to such connection. Neces- 
sary connection as thus conceived implies uniformity, as 
our argument for determinism has shown, the results are 
calculable, and the mechanical philosophy readily follows. 
But this conception rests on an analogy between our own 
behavior and what we regard as the behavior of forces and 
objects. We observe the thunder-clap followed by the 
lightning-flash, and infer necessary connection between the 
events; we do not perceive the connection, but only that 
one event follows another, not that it must follow, as Hume 
long ago pointed out. But we proceed to an idea of a 

3 Op. cit., p. 278. 


The Nature of Freedom 273 


causal efficiency within and behind nature on the basis of 
a very different sort of experience observable within our- 
selves. 

Moral Deeds.—Experience shows that in the inner 
world a moral deed implies selective attention, effort, at 
times an action which may be contrary to the line of least 
resistance: the strongest motive of presented alternatives 
may be overcome for reasons. Sometimes there is likeness 
between our moral deeds, sometimes not. The point is 
that there is no uniformity such that in all lke cireum- 
stances a like moral deed occurs and always will recur— 
as if we could revert to the idea of causality as attributed 
to nature’s sequences. Again, it is a noteworthy fact that 
moral deeds are not followed by decrease of energy, but 
by increase of moral values. There is conservation of 
values whatever the physical facts may be. The results 
are qualitative, not quantitative or purely calculable. It 
is a question of origins, not of ends. If it be a question 
of fact at all, it may be called one of spontaneity, the spon- 
taneity of a purposive self possessing an effective ‘‘uni- 
verse of desire.’’ 

Initiatives.—F rom this point of view motives are said 
to conflict because they diverge. Rejected motives testify 
to the strength of the one who discarded them. The 
strength of the motive depends also on the worth assigned 
to it, not on the mere strength of the desires or other incen- 
tives behind it. The sufficient reason is found then not in 
what is behind but what is before, teleologically inter- 
preted. Professor Palmer calls this ante-sequential causa- 
tion.t The determinist, keenly aware of the reign of law, 
defends the conception of causality by which nature’s se- 
quences are explained; whereas the libertarian defends 
the idea of life, spontaneity, progress. Thus reason seems 
arrayed against itself. But we need both considerations, 
the alternatives of non-purposive and purposive action. 
Freedom is present, character looks toward the future, 
out of which the self draws power. The past has not locked 
up our future. Our ideals are operative with regard to 

4 Op. ctt., p. 97. 


Q7 4 Goodness and Freedom 


the dawning future, despite the fact that ideas also oper- 
ate as past facts. It is through their representative char- 
acter, depicting what may occur, through suggested possi- 
bilities, that ideas work ante-sequentially. Thus we aim 
at betterment through apprehension of some need, im- 
poverishment or pain, as in the case of a boy going to 
college because aware of his ignorance. Whatever mere 
experience may contribute, we partly shape our ideals anew 
by our initiative and efforts. 

Personal Action.—So, too, Ward argues that there is 
a contrast between our consciousness of effects produced 
on us by experience and our consciousness of effectuation. 
Both elements are present in our strivings, but our striv- 
ings are not caused by the situations in which they appear. 
Experience is always owned. Percepts and appetites that 
nobody has are not percepts and appetites at all. Our 
purposes conform to no general law save that of self-con- 
servation and betterment. To deny these is to deny the 
reality of the self. If there is merely a bundle of presen- 
tations but no self to own and select between them, then 
there is no self to be determined and controlled. The 
determinist’s argument tries to resolve me into the series 
of my mental states, but the self is more than the sum 
of its particular experiences. Freedom is not disproved 
unless the self can be resolved into its successive states. 
Determinism gives only the anatomy of action, not what 
Seth regards as the constitutive ‘‘synthetie principle.’’ The 
action must be referred to a person. Without the ‘‘I’’ 
there could be no me: a state is not conscious of itself. 
There is a principle of unity involved in the fact that a 
single identical self watches, connects, compares, comments, 
feels, acts, possesses a duality of subject and object. Free- 
dom lies in the combination between character and cir- 
cumstances in which choice becomes manifest, that is, effi- 
eacy in behalf of ends, ideal causality. Through such moral 
integration a purpose is achieved, and steadiness of pur- 
pose, as one writer puts it, is no less a matter of fact than 
conservation of energy: my actions exhibit a qualitative 

5 Op. cit., p. 291, foll. 


The Nature of Freedom Q75 


uniformity which can only be expressed in terms of a pre- 
vailing interest, the unit of life being a moral constant. 

Indifference.—The type of theory known as ‘‘freedom 
of indifference,’’ or characterless choice, involves the idea 
of caprice.© We are said to be free only when there is 
nothing to induce us to take one course or another, no 
causation of any sort. The objection is that the facts of 
heredity and environment, disposition, habit, character, and 
the influence of previous choices are disregarded. If I will 
nothing, if I take no more interest in one course than 
in another, my will is then inefficient. This would be 
libertarianism in the extreme. | 

Self-determination.—In the ‘‘freedom of self-determi- 
nation’’ there is inner motivation.’ That is, persons are 
said to be autonomous or self-directed, while things are _ 
heteronomous, directed by something else. Man is said 
to be free to do anything which nothing save his own na- 
ture prevents him from doing. The first objection to this 
view is that it omits the salient character of freedom, the 
question whether it expresses a closed past or an open 
future. Another form of the theory is that freedom is 
an ability to act or not to act according as we choose or 
will, there is freedom only in the going forth of purpose.® 
The objection to this view is that it puts forward as the 
point of importance ‘‘the obseurest feature of volition’’— 
the connection between the inner and outer worlds—all 
inquiry about the origin of that which is to be sent forth 
into action is omitted. 

Rational Freedom.—The view that man is not a crea- 
ture of nature, but that there is a special type of causa- 
tion open to him as a person (rational causation), involves 
the proposition that freedom and the rational life are 
identical. Rational freedom means freedom to do right. 
Writers from the time of the Stoies to the present time 
who have espoused this view have had little to say about 
sin, which, if it is said to exist at all, is regarded as an 


6 Palmer, op. ctt., p. 186. 
7 Ibid., p. 190. 
8 Ibid., p. 192. 


276 Goodness and Freedom 


error of judgment, the cure for which is knowledge through 
broader contact with reality. The objection is that if this 
were the whole meaning of freedom dual possibilities 
would disappear, and sin as the power to become less than 
rational would be unaccounted for. Freedom applies ‘‘to 
the matter chosen, not to the manner of choosing.’’?° If 
we assume that because rationality is necessary in order 
that man shall be a person, we also assume that he can 
not cease to be rational. As matter of fact we find men 
ceasing to be rational, in some respects at least, becoming 
less than a person, dropping to the level of the brute, the 
villain, the confirmed criminal. Morover, awareness of 
freedom in those of us who steadily will to do what is right 
is accompanied by the possibility of irrationality. We en- 
deavor to become morally constant that we may make ir- 
rational deeds less and less likely. Further, rational free- 
dom regarded by itself, proves to be determinism. If sin 
and evil, together with everything indicative of blind force 
or mechanical causality, are only temporary aspects of a 
universe which is through and through rational, no ground 
is left for real finite individuals possessing real freedom. 
This view, which regards disorder as impossible, is some- 
times called idealistic determinism.? It goes with various 
theories of the Absolute. 

Virtue as Knowledge.—The conviction that vice is igno- 
rance, virtue knowledge, is, as we have seen, as old as 
Socrates’ time. We have noted the fact that there is abun- 
dant evidence that with increase of knowledge concerning 
the nature and sources of wrong-doing in the world— 
knowledge of man’s congenital equipment and knowledge 
of environment in all its details, including intimate psy- 
chological knowledge of abnormal mental life in all its 
forms—opportunities for moral integration and develop- 
ment increase. Hence there is a strong probability that 
knowledge will be virtue. This view is likely to have an 
increasing number of adherents. It is implied in most of 

® Ibid., p. 193. 


10 Ibid., p. 195. 
11 [bid., p. 196, 


The Nature of Freedom Q77 


our educational efforts, and is highly persuasive. Our 
knowledge does not permit us to settle the question. We 
may well cherish the hope that increase of rational knowl- 
edge will mean wisdom, and that wisdom will mean vir- 
tue. Yet the doubt lingers whether freedom to do right 
in the presence of advancing knowledge covers the entire 
field of freedom. Our present incomplete knowledge, we 
know, is compatible with failure. We find fault with one 
another chiefly on the ground that we do not put into 
practice what we know, that what we most neglect at times 
is the best we know. Rational persuasion is not habitually 
followed by immediate effort to carry out what we are 
persuaded is in highest degree right. The essence of free- 
dom still appears to be power to reject as well as ability 
to choose or act upon our knowledge.” 

The field of freedom narrows down, when we realize that 
absolute freedom would be possible to one Absolute Being 
only ; when we shift the point of emphasis from supposed 
freedom of action to freedom of choice between alternatives 
which the self does not generate; and then try to pene- 
trate behind the fact of choice. At first thought the mere 
fact that we possess the ability to choose may seem suffi- 
cient evidence of freedom in a very complete sense of the 
word. But again we find ourselves limited, for we can 
not wait till all returns are in that we may know precisely 
how every decision will turn out: life is short, time is pass- 
ing, a decision is imperative, and one ought to make the 
venture, even though one can not see except ‘‘in a glass 
darkly.’’? It is normally a part of our moral selfhood, this 
willingness to plunge in when delays are dangerous, in- 
stead of putting off the decision in moral cowardice or 
weak-kneed hesitancy implying a New England conscience. 
At times we make a decision with full realization that it 
is momentous. Looking back, we may recall the precise 
consideration which, accepted as in a flash, was the turn- 
ing-point. 

The Element of Attention.—Shall we say that the act 


12 Note what Aristotle says about virtue and vice as voluntary, 
Ethics, Bk. ITI, Chap. VI. 


278 Goodness and Freedom 


of attention to this idea or prompting which we adopted 
aS our motive was the essence of our freedom? If so, it 
would appear to involve self-activity as its efficiency ; since 
our attention was not purely passive. An objection to the 
attempt to explain freedom in its entirety in this way is 
raised by those who hold that all attention is derived, and 
by those also who deny self-activity, on psychological 
grounds. The mere psychological analysis is never ade- 
quate. The self is never sufficiently real for psychology. 
The decisive act of attention, to be real enough to make a 
difference must spring from a self also real enough to shift 
its focusing attention from a higher to a lower alternative, 
not simply real enough to concentrate upon a higher in 
contrast with a lower. In my decisive shifting or concen- 
tration of attention there is an element of self-direction or 
self-realization, in contrast with a possible yielding to what 
in other connections would be called a temptation. I ob- 
viously have a motive, when I focus my thought upon the 
alternative which I judge to be in line with my purpose; 
as surely as there is also some sort of attributable motive 
implied in my heedless deed, in ease I drop back in yield- 
ing to inertia, despair, or willful neglect. An element of 
indetermination enters in, although one can not agree with 
those who deem this a matter of absolute chance. My 
action is then said to be free inasmuch as my choice was 
not completely determined. Otherwise stated, there are 
motives prompting to different courses; in the actual choice 
there is freedom of the self, attending, deliberating, will- 
ing, almost unwittingly casting the die; while the volun- 
tary act as described by psychology is determined. 
Immediate Certainty—If now I attempt to reduce my 
freedom to immediate certainty that I possess it, the diffi- 
culty will be as great as in case of the attempt to simplify 
the process to the act of attention. Not all men have this 
intuition in such convincing form, nor do all agree con- 
cerning what they take to be immediate certainty. It 
might be said that the judgment of moral obligation ac- 
ecompanying the volition is sufficient proof, but determinists 
also admit the fact of this judgment. To insist that unless 


The Nature of Freedom 279 


our choice makes a difference the whole question of the 
nature of a moral deed is reduced to absurdity is not to 
cover the whole point, for here again the determinist is 
ready to admit that what we call choice makes a difference. 
McTaggart argues that the determinist is quite consistent 
in this belief: the determinist holds the view he contends 
for just because he believes that, while the event may well 
be determined by his choice, his choice is in its turn com- 
pletely determined.*® 

It is sometimes averred that there would be disastrous 
consequences if freedom were not true. But we do not find 
that people who become convinced of determinism giving 
themselves over to a life of indifference and self-indulgence. 
Freedom as a practical postulate remains. Even if, with 
Sidgwick, we try to give the whole matter up on the ground 
that the issues are insoluble, that they do not make any 
practical difference any way, we find that in actual life 
our views do make a describable difference. Although an 
uncritical determinism may be the usual creed of the 
vicious, the increase of vice does not turn upon any argu- 
ment regarding determinism. 

Kantian Freedom.—It might seem possible to escape 
from the whole complexity of our situation by holding, 
with Kant, that we are free in a superior world, which is 
transcendental, above time, a world of its own; while in 
the world of time everything is indeed determined, char- 
acter is fixed. From this viewpoint it is the inner essence 
or ideal reality of a thing which determines its character- 
istic reaction. So man is said to be free as a cause which 
is not in its turn an effect, the resulting action being in 
the phenomenal world where necessity everywhere reigns. 
The objection to this view taken as it reads, without qual- 
ifications, is that there is no true freedom if the transcen- 
dental self (out of time) has no power over the empirical 
character (in time). Determinism on the level of conduct 
might still be absolute, there would be one vast predeter- 
mined empirical series. Real experience would then be 


13 Op, cit., p. 171. 


280 Goodness and Freedom 


impossible.1+ Our experience in the realm of time, where 
our moral deeds are done, is real for us, whatever else 
may be unreal. We find ourselves related to the temporal 
order, however free we may seem speculatively when we try 
to conceive of the self as an ‘‘essence’’ in a realm apart. 
Bergson’s View.—In contrast with the view that time 
is unreal, Bergson approaches the situation with the prop- 
Osition that time is real, efficacious; we live real time. 
‘‘Pure duration is the form which the succession of our 
conscious states assumes when our ego lets itself ive, when 
it refrains from separating its present from its former 
states. For this purpose it need not be entirely absorbed 
in the passing sensation or idea; for then, on the contrary, 
it would no longer endure.’’ ?°. Something is always doing. 
Reality is a ceaseless springing up of something new, with 
an element of the unforeseeable.1® If our action is one that 
‘‘involves the whole of our person and is truly ours, it 
could not have been foreseen.’’ Bergson holds then that in 
reality we choose without ceasing, and without ceasing we 
also abandon many things. ‘‘Consciousness corresponds 
exactly to the living being’s power of choice; it is coex- 
tensive with the fringe of possible action that surrounds 
the real action ; consciousness is Synonymous with invention 
and with freedom.’’*” Our real need then is to seek, 
within the depths of our experience, the moment wherein 
we feel ourselves most intimately within our own life. It 
is in this moment that we plunge into pure duration, ‘‘a 
duration in which the past, always moving on, is swelling 
unceasingly with a present that is absolutely new. 
Rare indeed are the moments when we are selt-posdsctedl 
to this extent: it is then that our actions are truly free.’’ 18 
Our consciousness is in truth distinct from the organ it 
animates, although it undergoes its vicissitudes; it is es- 
sentially free, is freedom itself; and the self as a living 
being is a center of action. 


14 Cf. Ward, op. cit., p. 300. 

15 Time and Free Will, tr. by F. L. Pogson, 1910, p. 100. 
16 Creative Evolution, tr. by A. Mitchell, 1911, p. 6. 

17 Ibid., p. 263. 

18 [bid., p. 200. 


The Nature of Freedom 281 


Freedom Defined.—If from this vivid description, which 
has never been surpassed, we turn for a final narrowing 
down of the situation with respect to freedom, we may, 
with Palmer, define freedom as ‘‘that guidance through 
which, for purposes of our own, we narrow a dual future 
possibility to a single actual result.’’19 This is not mere 
freedom of will, as if the will were detachable, but freedom 
of the self or person. It involves the power to step back 
in the moral scale, to be less than a person. The action 
in question is done to meet a need, in the presence of an 
ambiguity which must be resolved if one shall proceed. It 
implies desire, not caprice; a contrast between my actual 
self and the self I might be, with a possibility that I may 
commit moral suicide. One clear course will keep me 
harmonious with my better self and with society. The 
other courses would mean self-destruction. For me there 
are not alternative ‘‘rational’’ ideals: no reasoner has many 
sound conclusions among which to choose; he either hits 
the valid ones or falls into error. A narrow freedom at- 
tends a wide vision. A great statesman, merchant, inven- 
tor, chess-player sees but one thing to do where the ama- 
teur sees a dozen. The implied purposive linkages are no 
less clearly knit than are mechanical sequences. The moral 
self, once committed to its decision, every step follows of 
necessity. The rational being, capable of irrationality, 
narrows the possibilities, eliminates the possibility of self- 
contradiction, and casts the die; he is free because he could 
have disregarded reason. Moral thought is thus influential 
because the person is a coordinating center, a fresh cred- 
tive power, contrasted in kind with other agencies which 
meet in his life. 

The experimental evidence of such freedom, as already 
suggested above, is found in the experience of freedom, 
not as mere intuitive certainty, but in the act of decision 
which cuts off various possibilities: I feel myself free where 
possibilities exist. Freedom is a unique fact, inwardly 
observable, in the mandate that such an act shall occur, 
ought to occur. The alternative chosen does not become a 

19 See op. cit., Chap. VIII. 


282 Goodness and Freedom 


fact until I have fixed my attention on it, selected it and 
sent it forth. I am directly conscious of what I choose. I 
am not directly conscious of what I might have chosen: 
this does not become a fact. 

This experience of an alternative becoming a fact, un- 
mistakably atributable to myself, is the source of the wide- 
spread conviction that freedom is real, belief in which is 
imbedded in the structure of society. We employ phrases 
unintelligible save on libertarian grounds, for example, 
the fact of blame and praise: we do not blame things.” 
Estimates of worth or value implying freedom are deeply 
inwrought in all human intercourse. Praise is a way of 
securing a recurrence of the good by appeal to freedom, 
implying a sense on our part that wrong is avoidable. The 
righteous man believes he could fall. We carry a con- 
sciousness of uncertainty even when with ever increased 
precision and effort we mechanize our conduct according to 
a pattern, whereas for determinism certitude of prediction 
ig Increased in proportion to the degree of knowledge. 

Limitations of Freedom.—The considerations which 
make for determinism are carried forward and given a 
more adequate interpretation. We frankly admit that man 
is a human being, that only nature can execute his de- 
cisions, only such acts go forth from the self as will not 
jar with those that have the right of way, that our de- 
cisions must often await their eventuations. We admit 
too all that psychology tells us concerning pre-inclinations, 
habits, and human bondage to habit. We no less readily 
admit that the wise man continually euts off sections of 
his freedom; that freedom in one sense is not precious, is 
not to be retained. It is significant that our processes of 
deliberation involve ambiguity, that is, lack of acquaintance 
with the world. Much life is wasted in double-mindedness. 
Strength is gained by mechanizing a large range of deci- 
sions, that we may by narrowing our freedom realize a 
certain high ideal. We are encompassed too by duties 
which close many paths for us. We need to concentrate, 
we must be constant, and increasingly consistent. Our 

20 Palmer, op. cit., p. 61. 


The Nature of Freedom 283 


sense of freedom assures us that we are not compelled to 
do as duty bids. Yet we realize that the only alternative, 
as we advance by narrowing our future in behalf of our 
ideal, would be some sort of disruption of the self, a disin- 
tegration of character. Yet awareness of the limitations 
of freedom increases one’s conviction that it is a reality. 
It is well to give fullest recognition to the arguments for 
determinism, to see how large they loom upon our intel- 
lectual horizon, how they increase as our knowledge grows, 
that we may see how powerful are two or three considera- 
tions which offset them all. It is important also frankly 
to admit that our sense of freedom is partly a conviction 
where we can not wholly see, that freedom is still in a re- 
spect a fact to marvel over, as Tennyson says: 


Our wills are ours, we know not how; 
Our wills are ours, to make them thine. 


Yet freedom within limits which we did not create and 
which we can not change still seems to the ethical idealist 
real freedom involving real responsibility, and a real self 
whose existence we can not deny. It has been said that 
self-consciousness is the greatest marvel in psychology: 
we can establish the fact but can not comprehend it; we 
can analyze the conditions and prerequisites without ac- 
counting for the appearence of this marvelous fact.24 It 
is a puzzle to know how thought, emerging from this con- 
sclousness, becomes influential, ‘‘how ideals get their 
clutch on events.’’ But, finding the fact, we undertake 
the interpretation which is most faithful to the fullness of 
the facts and the amplitude of values. Here Bergson’s 
statement comes into play that we are most free when act- 
ing with the whole self, that the action which involves the 
whole of our person, the action which is most free, is most 
truly ours, also the one which could not have been fore- 
seen. We are sent back to ‘‘the true and living unity’’ 
which surpasses the factitious unity of the understanding, 
that in us which is most removed from externality, in the 


21 W. Windelband, An Introduction to Philosophy, tr. by J. McCabe, 
1921, p. 281. 


284 Goodness and Freedom 


depths of our nature where we are most intimately our- 
selves,?? 

There is need then of an appeal from subtle analysis to 
experience, which gives back to us the rich content of our 
awareness of freedom. Our analysis leaves us with the im- 
pression that power to step back in the moral scale, or 
to accept an alternative making for the good is power at 
its minimum. But freedom is proved real even by this 
precise limitation. The self is real in this its decision 
which makes for or against. Granted the sure reality of 
the moral self, we may supplement the poverty of our 
analysis by the other principles of our faith. Thus Berg- 
son’s inspiring conception of intuition as yielding aware- 
ness of the full true self in its completer freedom gives 
horizon to our thought, and once more reminds us of the 
limitations of the intellect. The self, real in the moment 
of its minutest analyses, is also real in its vision of ideals, 
its conviction that there is a realm of values. In actual 
practice what avails with most of us is our working con- 
sciousness of freedom, our faith in the moral order, and 
our interest in the opportunities which enable us to con- 
tribute our part toward its fulfillment. 


REFERENCES 


Bereson, H., Time and Free Will, trans., 1911, Chap. III; Crea- 
tive Evolution, trans., 1911, Chaps. IT, ITT. 

Warp, J., The Realm of Ends, Chaps. XIII, XIV. 

GREEN, T. H., Prolegomena to Ethics, Bk. I, Chap. ITI. 

Patmer, G. H., The Problem of Freedom, 1911, Chaps. IITI-X. 

JANET, P., The Theory of Morals, trans., pp. 369-378. 

MaAckKenzigz, J. 8., Manual of Ethics, p. 90. 

SerH, J., Hthical Principles, Part III, Chap. I. 

Leticuoton, J. A., The Field of Philosophy, 1923, Part II, 
Chap. XXI. 

Ten Broeke, The Moral Life and Religion, Chap. ITI. 

Moors, G. E., Hthics, 1916, Chap. VI. 


22 Creatwe Evolution, pp. 47, 199; see, also, pp. 29, 212, 270, 262, 
306. 


CHAPTER XVIII 
OPTIMISM AND PESSIMISM 


Interpretations of Freedom.—The ultimate meaning of 
freedom is a question which lies outside the field of ethics. 
Each man introduces the justification of the fact or truth 
of freedom in the theological or metaphysical terms which 
he finds acceptable. What is significant for ethics in any 
case is the practical consequence of the optimism, pessi- 
mism, meliorism, or whatever the faith may be by which 
the results of ethical analysis are supplemented. 

One man will try, for example, to reconcile God’s fore- 
knowledge with our freedom, on the ground that, as God 
is eternal, the divine foreknowledge sees all at once what 
to us is spread out in the realm of time. Another will main- 
tain that predestination is not attributable to the original 
Christianity, hence that we should now renew our practi- 
eal faith in the original teachings of Jesus. <A third will 
approach the situation with the assumption that, despite 
the fact that freedom was given us by the Creator, in the 
divine purpose we have real freedom, and an obligation is 
put upon us to see what this truth means in our actual 
situation in the world. For, it is pointed out, man is in 
equilibrium between two tendencies or loves: (1) the love 
of self, of worldly power, of ruling over men; and (2) 
love for God and the neighbor. 

The Ruling Love.—The argument for this position runs 
somewhat as follows: Freedom is for the sake of man’s 
moral and spiritual development. Choice between a ruling 
love of self and its consequenees, and a ruling love toward 
God and the neighbor must be a real one, a choice which 
will tend to establish man in his love; otherwise man’s 
moral experience would have no real meaning at all. For 
it is plain that goodness or virtue can not be forced upon 

285 


286 Goodness and Freedom 


us. Man needs to see the consequences of a ruling passion 
that degrades, a dominating love of self that enslaves, a 
prevailing love of the world that disappoints. He needs 
to will to be free from such dominion and such results of 
his own true volition, or the alternative love will have no 
meaning for him. Hence man must have sufficient experi- 
ence to acquire a love which springs from self in order 
to make a real judgment in favor of the good and the true. 
To be able to acquire this complex of experiences of his 
own, he must have power which makes him relatively inde- 
pendent. Even though he shares divine power, and in 
choosing is guided by divine wisdom and in acting is quick- 
ened by divine love, he at any rate chooses and acts as if 
this wisdom and love were his own. Whatever in fact man 
does through love has the full value of freedom. As truth 
' becomes such for us when we make it our own, so does 
goodness. When we think, will and act ‘‘from the heart’’ 
we believe that we are truly ourselves, if ever in all our 
experience. Granted this free expression of the whole self, 
then indeed a man is willing to be led into that ever-in- 
creasing spiritual freedom which coincides with rational 
freedom. 

Types of Freedom.—It is said then that (1) in his 
natural freedom, through inheritance, man loves himself 
and the world, readily thinks and wills evils, confirming 
himself in them by his reasonings; (2) in his more intel- 
ligent freedom he is prompted by love of reputation 
for the sake of honor, gain, the appearance of morality, 
deterred as he is from certain evils because he wishes to 
preserve his reputation; but (3) in his spiritual freedom 
evils once lightly regarded are looked upon as sins and so 
are no longer willed: man looks above his lesser self in 
love toward God and the neighbor, and wills the good 
from a more interior love. As his natural freedom de- 
creases, his spiritual freedom increases, and so his moral 
liberty unites itself with a rational freedom which purifies 
it. As he turns from selfishness and its results, he unites 
his will more affirmatively with the good; and as this 
union of will becomes constant it becomes a prevailing love 


Optimism and Pessimism 287 


worthy of continuing into the future life. In its eternal 
aspect then ethical freedom unites the several meanings 
which taken by themselves make it difficult to prove that 
man is free. Man’s relative freedom within the limits of 
a purpose inclusive of the whole race is compatible with 
an absolute standard which we approximate as we narrow 
the issues, foregoing the liberty that is not worth while 
for that greater freedom which becomes ‘‘the glory of the 
imperfect.’’ Only through a conception of the grades 
and degrees of freedom are we able then to overcome the 
appearances and relativities which at certain points 
threaten the argument. 

The Degrees of Freedom.—lIt is clear then that only 
when we rise above the level of mere mechanisms, with 
the implied conception of rigidity and uniformity of 
natural law and of causality as an irresistible necessity, to 
the plane of unifying purpose are we able rightly to place 
man’s freedom as a true quality or possession in the uni- 
verse. This least degree of freedom, namely, the power 
to step back or advance in the moral scale, finds its ful- 
filment in the maximum freedom of the eternal values. 
The slightly possible freedom-experience which psychology 
enables us to deseribe in part, takes on increasing value 
as we ascend the ethical scale. Foster, for instance, makes 
moral freedom turn upon psychical freedom, as ‘‘that state 
of consciousness in which reflection upon the whole con- 
tent of our ego is possible, and along with this a clearly 
conscious deliberation and decision of the will,’’ this psy- 
chical freedom being the indispensable presupposition of 
any clear thinking upon moral requirements.t Determin- 
ism does justice to the passivity-moment of our moral ex- 
perience, but not to the activity-element present in all 
reality. ‘‘There is a gradedness of activity which is the 
criterion of the dignity of all reality, if the static had been 
original, processes would not have started at all. The 
active moment is necessary first.’? There is then an origi- 
nal archetypal act, immanent and constant, and the static 
element is a deposit of the active. In our moral decisions 


1 Present Expression of Christianity, 1921, p. 198. 


288 Goodness and Freedom 


the consciousness of freedom is combined with this con- 
sciousness of motivation.2 Determinism, failing thus to 
get back of the deposit of the original activity, puts ex- 
planation in place of moral responsibility; and the guilt- 
feeling and remorse are reduced to mere pain with refer- 
ence to the situation. But granted interpretation, freedom 
is ‘‘the capacity for self-determination according to 
motives of its own. The will is not under accidental im- 
pulses in its choice, but new motives overbear the existing 
impulses.’’?* Our freedom is our ability to move toward 
values as an end rather than toward ‘‘consequences.’’ If, 
then, we ask, what is it that the will wills? the answer is, 
Not consequences, but goods, values. Its doing that, is its 
freedom. 

Freedom as an Ideal. We add to this account the fact 
that the resulting joys and benefits coming from the choice 
of the higher alternative show that the consequences could 
not have been truly moral unless we had willed to make 
them ours by a real decision. While we contemplate the 
dual possibility, we do not know what choice we will make; 
we do not assuredly know that we will not make the wrong 
one. But experience has given assurance of great values 
to be added, 7f we make the right one. Once having seen 
that moral freedom is the vital consideration, we may 
press on from the minimum degree of freedom accorded 
us by Palmer’s view to the values and powers of rational 
and spiritual freedom as ideals to live by. 

What interests us is the hope that by becoming more 
rational we may acquire a higher and more constant state 
of character, further removed from the time when we hesi- 
tated between a ruling passion and a wise prevailing love. 
If we were most free when acting with the whole self, as 
Bergson assures us, in facing this crucial situation, then 
indeed, we may grow in freedom by becoming ever more 
true to the ideal. Becoming steadfast in the pursuit of 
goodness, we find ourselves less concerned by the unpleas- 
ant consciousness that we may fail, less harassed by limita- 


2 Ibid., p. 207. 
8 Op. cit., p. 210, 


Optimism and Pessimism 289 


tions. By sharing a spiritual goodness which is open to 
all, we also share a freedom which involves fewer con- 
straints. In retrospect we realize that the struggles and 
uncertainties of life’s earlier contrasts have brought rich 
compensation, as we have approximated the abundant 
life. 

Popular Optimism.—Anticipation of ultimate victory 
over evil readily follows from the theory that sin is due 
to ignorance. Evil being less real, according to this view, 
the great need is for increasing knowledge of human nature 
and a cheerful philosophy. Recent popular optimism 
dwells on what is positive or affirmative; seeks to avoid 
condemnatory judgments. But such optimism assumes its 
points and is a working faith only. So, too, with the 
optimism which, in a light and easy fashion, assures us 
that everything will be well with those who do God’s will; 
that the very fact of the moral order is a guarantee that 
the good cause will triumph.* Rashdall contends that the 
hypothesis of pure optimism is not necessary to morality, 
but is positively hostile to it. The ends which we feel 
ourselves bound to work for are not attainable unless we 
will them. Wrong deeds actually retard, while right ones 
promote the end. We are convinced that the moral means 
by which we are seeking to attain the end are real means, 
although we do not positively know. ‘‘Only if the universe 
is less good than a universe which we can imagine, can 
the alternative which is presented to us in every act of 
moral judgment be, as our moral consciousness assures us 
that it is, a real alternative.’’ © 

Moral Optimism.—The kind of optimism our argument 
for freedom calls for, then is not sheer assertion that all 
will be well, but realization of the opportunities disclosed 
by the fact of freedom as real. We are not urged to post- 
pone till the future life those crucial matters which popu- 
lar optimism uncritically believes will somehow turn out 
well. The world of experience which we are constrained 
ped by J. Royce, The Spirtt of Modern Philosophy, 1892, 


p. 441. 
5 Op. cit., Vol. II, p. 288. 
6 Ibid., p. 289. 


290 Goodness and Freedom 


to accept as a fact involves difficulties which we do not 
yet understand, uncertainties to be resolved. ‘‘The world 
has inevitably the moment of relatively capricious will 
about it. Its existence is a fact, chosen from eternity by 
the Self. We can not fathom this choice, we can not be 
elear as to the precise meaning of this decree, except in 
so far as we men too share in the choice, in our own active 
life, are conscious of our own purposes. In choosing for 
ourselves we enter into and partake of the Self who chooses 
this from the infinity of possible worlds. No abstract 
‘descriptive’ reason can deduce what it is about the world 
which makes it good, that is, worth choosing. We can, 
for the first only say, ‘So it is.’’’? 

Most of the idealists have been optimists in the sense 
that the Eternal Ideas (Plato) are the ends of all our 
striving, that there is a moral order higher in worth than 
the empirical world of sense-experience. Leibnitz, who 
persuasively argued that all is for the best in the best of 
worlds, is the type in modern times. But, ethical idealists 
guard against the assumption that this leaves us nothing 
significant to do. In practice this is to be made the best 
of possible worlds by working together to realize the moral 
ideal in precisely this given realm of ordinary experience 
where, apparently, there is so much that is hostile to the 
moral order. ‘‘God’s world, in being good, can surely be 
nothing less serious than a moral order.’’® Royce believes 
that faith in good as the final goal of ill does not become 
rational till we have taken account of the gravity of the 
issues of the spiritual life, not until one has fairly com- 
prehended the bitterness of such a pessimism as even that 
of Schopenhauer. <A half-hearted scheme of the moral 
order eventuates in pessimism, not optimism. The good 
world is not innocent, does not ignore evil; but possesses 
and still conquers it.2 God’s glory is not vindicated by 
ignoring but by hating and triumphing over evil. There 
is an outery for God’s truth by those who find it not. 


7 Royce, op. cit., p. 436. 
8 Royce, ibid., p. 440. 
4 [bid., p. 459. 


Optimism and Pessimism 291 


So, too, Ward holds that customary optimism seeks a 
world of unmixed happiness, with no physical and moral 
evil, this pure happiness is to be permanent and univer- 
sal.1° But this belief implies only the hedonistic standard 
of right and wrong. Happiness in itself is not the supreme 
goal of the moral life. It follows indeed from our whole 
inquiry into the nature of the good that there are several 
ends to be sought in order that happiness may even be 
anticipated as an accompaniment of virtue. Popular 
thought has reacted against the idea of a heaven of per- 
fect blessedness, with nothing to overcome: the good life 
is to be found in activity. With the decay of theologies 
affirming blessedness as absolutely secure for those who 
have right beliefs, has come renewed moral conviction in 
what must be done to win a heaven worth while. Moral 
optimism then is very far from being bare assertion that 
good will be the goal of ill. There is a tendency to react 
toward pessimism, then to seek a constructive point of view. 
Even the great optimists too readily adopted their faith. 

Pessimism.—Hedonism, we have seen easily passes into 
pessimism with the conclusion that pleasure is unattain- 
able; it also follows from the view that evil is a mystery, 
that dualism of good and evil is ultimate, or that the will 
is depraved. It is popularly assumed that evil is stronger 
than good, human nature is selfish and can not be changed, 
and sin is ‘‘the most real fact in the world.’’ Hence, 
follow arguments against theism: how could a God who is 
good permit all this misery, sin, vice, degradation, and 
suffering? Schopenhauer, typical pessimist, developed a 
motive in philosophy which dates back to ancient India. 
He held that existence itself (due to the will to live) is 
evil, misery and pain are inevitably our lot on this plane 
of being.1t This view as current in Buddhistie and theo- 
sophie form amounts to this: we are bound by desire to 
*‘the wheel of life,’? we are sufferers from our own past 
Karma (the burden of deeds from a former existence or 


10 The Realm of Ends, p. 339. 
11 See P. Deussen, The Hlements of Metaphysics, tr. by C. M. Duff, 
1894, 


292 Goodness and Freedom 


incarnation) ; and can only escape by killing out desire, 
and attaining freedom through Nirvana (the cessation of 
all this strife, escape from life’s wheel). 

The despair of the hedonist has been met by pointing 
out that pleasure is not the only value, that we should 
develop our whole nature to the full. History brought 
a cure for Christian despair of the world, in the quest for 
the good amidst social life in its fullness, in the world as 
found. Pessimism has been set down as cowardice: it is 
ethical to regard the world face to face and ‘‘see it whole,”’ 
working through and beyond whatever needs to be over- 
come. Our modern psychological knowledge of human 
nature has undermined popular pessimisms. There is no 
reason to ‘‘kill out desire.’’ It is a question of eligible 
desires unified by a purpose. Our deeds live on and pro- 
duce consequences; but it is better not to generalize. It 
is a question of particular deeds, not of a mass of deeds, 
said to produce the ‘‘karma’’ of another embodiment. 
And the moral value of a deed is a more intelligible basis 
of judgment than its mere consequences. Schopenhauer’s 
conclusion that the sum of pains is greater than the sum 
of pleasures, hence it were better if we were not, has not 
met with either philosophical or popular acceptance. 

Pessimistic Types.—To some it has seemed that the 
logical conclusion of Schopenhauer’s philosophy would be 
universal suicide. Hartmann, who followed Schopenhauer, 
held that true pessimism will continue till the race is per- 
suaded that life should cease: we ought not to leave our 
fellowmen to suffer. All might then join in common 
suicide. A typical way of escape that reverts to ancient 
India is through meditation, said to culminate in realiza- 
tion of the individual’s oneness with the Absolute. The 
pessimism of the Old Testament, with its ‘‘vanity of vani- 
ties,’? passed with a larger vision of faith, although pes- 
simism remained as an element. The pessimism of the 
Rubavyat of Omar Khayyam is typical of views current in 
literature and poetry. Pessimism breaks out afresh with 
social disorders and passes with the coming of prosperity, 
and the reaction from a great war brings moral values to 


Optimism and Pessimism 293 


the fore. It breaks out, not only with the young poet, dis- 
appointed in love, but with the preacher who blames the 
world because it turns against him in his heresy. But this 
is ‘‘the pathetic fallacy.’’ The fault is not in the world 
when a man does not make good. Again, individual pes- 
simism may be due to disease or a prevailing adverse mood. 
There have been so many instances—Schopenhauer, who 
was grouchy in the extreme, Hartmann, who had been 
mangled in battle, Carlyle the dyspeptic, Leopardi, who be- 
came insane, Nietzsche, who went insane meanwhile—that 
the world makes large allowance for the subjective ele- 
ment. 

Limitations of Pessimism.—It would be difficult to 
show, with Hartmann, that the main conditions and values 
of life—health, youth, hunger, passion, love, home, friend- 
ship, envy, repentance, hope, religion, honor, business, 
wealth, knowledge, art—bring negative pleasures. We do 
not prize the home ‘‘because it protects us from so many 
miseries.’” We may indeed fail for the most part in quest 
of renown, honor, worldly success; but we attain other 
and greater values meanwhile. Science and art were once 
indeed accessible only to the few, but have been made more 
extensively accessible with the growth of civilization, not- 
ably within the last hundred years. Wealth depends on. 
the man who possesses it. The social conditions of life 
are not fixed, but vary with our use of them. There are 
wonderful possibilities in our nature for overcoming 
misery. We well know what cne night’s sleep will do for 
us on occasion, what changes are wrought by ‘‘a square 
meal,’’ how we recover from a shock, an illness, a sorrow. 
Pain is primarily remedial in the organism, not a sign of 
evil: the organism tends to regain harmony. Pleasure, 
when intense, becomes pain and warns us. The ‘‘will to 
live’’ is good, beneficent. The isolation of the will from 
the rest of our nature as ‘‘evil’’ or depraved being unsound 
psychologically speaking, we are not called upon to refute 
the creeds founded on this assertion. Our desires bring 
evil only so far as they are not regulated. 

The Values of Pessimism.—It is generally admitted 


294, Goodness and Freedom 


that pessimism has done the world a service, has set us 
free from shallow and invertebrate optimism; quickened us 
to knowledge of the facts of pain and misery, to pity, sym- 
pathy, love. There must often be adverse criticism, rest- 
lessness, strife, even destruction, before reconstruction can 
begin. Out of the conflict new moral convictions arise. 
People must first be aroused by a sense of need. They must 
be made uncomfortable in their mere pleasure-seeking and 
selfishness. 

So we come to see the deeper meanings of our strife, 
the limitations of pleasure, feeling, desire. On the whole 
it has not been the pure pleasures we have sought, but 
those that are mixed with pain. The pessimists are in 
error who argue that pain destroys pleasure. What men 
love is life, not pleasure as such; and men show by their 
conduct and the tenacity wherewith they cling to life how 
strong and normal is this desire. From the fact that pain 
is prevalent in the world there is no sound inference to the 
effect that life is not worth living. Let us then have the 
judgments of men who are normal, whatever the maimed 
and morbid may contribute by their pessimisms. We have 
the future before us. We find people of great attainments 
assuring us that, instead of doing something ‘‘to end it 
all,’? what they would ask for would be an opportunity 
to live this life over with the privilege of profiting by 
experience. 

Meliorism.—Thus optimism with its shallowness and 
pessimism with its profound lessons gives way to meliorism, 
or the doctrine that the world can be made better. As 
lovers of combat, morally courageous, we are ready to put 
up with the uncertainty, make the act of faith, and push 
through in full test of higher possibilities. Our wants 
are indications of our potentialities, not signs of pain and 
evil. The triumphant life is lived amidst many adverse 
conditions. This is already in part the ideal world. Life 
is so constituted that many wrongs right themselves. Since 
evil is disorganization, it tends toward its own destruction, 
rises to the surface, discloses its motives or schemes; con- 
fesses. Adverse reactions increase as sins increase, and 


Optimism and Pessimism 295 


with their disclosure we have opportunity to judge. Vice 
contains, from the beginning, the seed of its own destruc- 
tion. Almost without knowing why, people reach the 
parting of the ways and turn from sin: all they are able 
to say is that their ‘‘better nature’’ would not let them 
continue any longer. Sin then is not a sucecess—not in 
the long run, whatever the appearances. Some one has 
said, ‘‘Hell has no power outside of itself.’’ Evil fights 
with evil, rather than against good; produces its own 
poisons. So the world has been seeing since the great war. 
The instruments of war have been made so terrible that 
apparently war will not ‘‘pay’’ even for the most mali- 
cious. Evil has had full power to run itself out, in war. 
Limitations of Evil—tThe fact of evil in its sphere does 
not prove that it is an independent power, able to break 
the bounds of hell and disrupt either the natural world 
or the moral order. We no longer allege that evil is 
‘‘needed’’ to oppose the good. If it could be defined as 
necessary, evil would indeed appear to be an element in 
the world-plan. We could then argue that we should do 
wrong that good might come. The modern attitude is one 
of frank admission of the facts in the light of growing 
knowledge, with reference to what life might be without 
evil in the world. Evil is real to those who are within it, 
subject to it, victims of it; and those who have fought 
know indeed that ‘‘war is hell.’’ But even within its 
sphere there may come the strongest assurance of the 
greater reality which evil can not touch. Evil can not be 
understood on its own level. But profoundly significant 
indeed is the contrast by which we are lifted above it by 
insight into the motives from which it springs, and the 
results to which it leads, given free play as it is to run 
to its limit, to annihilate itself. We refuse to limit our- 
selves to the mere portrayal of the horrors, as if the pes- 
simist were right in painting the blackness of hell. There 
is no explanation of darkness while we dwell on the dark- 
ness. So far those who emphasize the affirmative are right. 
The lower can not explain the higher. What is to be hoped 
for, is that we may come out of the conflict with determi- 


296 Goodness and Freedom 


nation to do our part wherever we find opportunity to 
enlighten, encourage, serve through what we can best con- 
tribute. 

As Paulsen puts the matter, the universe supplies us 
with appropriate conditions of growth, furnishes our 
capacities with the necessary tasks, and gives to our life, 
if we only wish it, a rich and beautiful content: we could 
not, being what we are, have any use for a different world. 
In the only human history which we know our great insti- 
tutions have come about through struggle between good 
and evil. Prudence, perseverance, courage, presuppose 
sensuousness aS a means of resistance; the social virtues 
presuppose the natural selfishness of the sensuous man. 
All the great heroes of humanity became what they were 
only by struggling with evil. The sentence and death of 
Socrates gave his life their proper setting. Jesus had to 
be glorified by death. Without rapacity and the love of 
war on the part of neighbors there would be no defensive 
union; without injustice and violence among confederates, 
no legal order; the Church was established as a power for 
good to battle with sin. 

From these facts the conclusion nowadays is, not that the 
deeds done in the past are those to be repeated, not that war 
is to be eulogized, or that any evil has value in itself; but 
that we can now find higher means. The evil in the world 
does not benefit itself, it benefits the good. Jesus does 
not depart from the world with a curse on his lips, but 
with a prayer: ‘‘Forgive them, for they know not what 
they do.’’ ‘‘It must be that offences come; but woe unto 
that man by whom the offence cometh.’’ War has pro- 
duced heroes, but war is not therefore justifiable. There 
are obstacles enough to test man’s abilities without defend- 
ing the existence of evil as a stimulus, obstacle, or foil. 
Social evolution takes place through struggle between par- 
ties and classes, rather than struggle between good and 
evil. There is darkness enough in the world to give us 
contrast, without sin. It does not follow that because the 
Church came into being to save men from their sins, the 
existence of sin is the essential reason for its continuance. 


Optimism and Pessimism 297 


What is essential is experience, manifold contacts, wealth 
of opportunity, fullness of life. The argument for melior- 
ism has been greatly strengthened by changing views of 
egoism and altruism. 

Summary.—Looking back over the field of our argu- 
ment in preceding chapters, we do not then find that the 
existence of evil or sin militates against the conception of 
goodness as self-realization. It is chiefly a question of ad- 
mitting the facts of evil, sin, vice, crime in such a way as 
intelligibly to place them—neither too real nor too nearly 
unreal—that we may be in a position to do our part. Em- 
phasis falls, not on the mere obstacles to be overcome, but 
on the profound promptings of our nature spurring us on 
toward victory. Conscience does not disclose to us out 
of hand what is right, what wrong: these are matters to be 
delved for, the good is something to be wrought out. Our 
freedom does not guarantee virtue, it makes virtue pos- 
sible. Our freedom to choose is not even something to 
boast of. But freedom as an ideal, as rational and spiritual 
ig a privilege to rejoice in. Freedom implies something 
better than optimism as usually understood. Pain has 
its meanings for us. Pessimism is sound in part. What 
we need is a working faith to enable us to be constructive 
in thought, word, and deed. Affirmation does not carry 
far. Denial of evil scarcely avails at all. But what is 
needed is interpretation, not mere explanation. 


REFERENCES 


Lerpnitz, G. W., Monadology, tr. by R. Latta, 1898. 

SuLty, J., Pessimism, 1877. 

PAULSEN, F., System of Ethics, trans., Bk. II, Chap. ITI. 
Royce, J., The Spirit of Modern Philosophy, 1892, Sect. XTIT. 
Warp, J., The Realm of Ends, Chap. XVII. 

RAsHpDALL, H., The Theory of Good and Evil, Vol. II, p. 288. 


CHAPTER XIX 
THE WORTH OF THE INDIVIDUAL 


Egoism.—It was formerly assumed that all men are by 
nature self-seeking; for the instinct of self-preservation 
was regarded as central, fundamental, also prior in time; 
and evidences from the field of evolution were said to prove 
that self-assertion is the prevailing principle. So, too, in 
the economic world the struggle for existence is so intense 
that self-interest has seemingly been the prevailing motive 
in all history. Religion has added its word in favor of the 
original perversity of human nature, without inquiring in 
a thorough way into the nature and origin of man’s per- 
verse ‘‘self-love.’’ To call a man ‘‘selfish’’ is to condemn 
him, and apparently nothing more need be said. To praise 
conduct as ‘‘unselfish’’ has been to say enough about it. 
Very little attention has been given to the fact that ex- 
treme self-sacrifice begets its opposite. 

The moral theory founded on these evidences is known 
as egoism, the view that as all men are in reality self- 
seeking, self-interest, or the greatest attainable pleasure 
of the ego, should be the explicit motive. A natural his- 
tory has been developed to fit the theory. The argument 
seemed highly plausible, especially before the days of com- 
parative study into the origin and development of moral 
ideas; and it seems to be confirmed by the fact that selfish 
men and women abound everywhere. Indeed, the theory 
of self-interest appears to be the only one that can be veri- 
fied by appeal to facts. To Hobbes, with whom the history 
of English ethics began with vigor, man seemed to be es- 
sentially a brutish or selfish mortal, tending by instinct 
to make war upon his fellowmen; while the alleged sociality 
of men dwelling together in peace was due to a contract 

298 


The Worth of the Individual 299 


adopted for egoistic reasons.1 Mandeville undertook to 
show that all apparent other-regarding motives are really 
motives of self-interest.2, Spinoza’s Ethics also emphasizes 
self-preservation. It is an easy step from any argument 
for egoism to skepticism concerning human nature. 

Appeal to public life as we all find it discloses manifold 
evidences. We find politicians, ostensibly representatives 
of the people, using their high office to foster private am- 
bition; and there is much truth in the claim made by a 
sometime leader of Tammany Hall: ‘‘to the victor belong 
the spoils.’’ Even in the philanthropies the social worker’s 
own development appears to be the prevailing motive; the 
missionary in foreign fields is said to be one who was dis- 
appointed in love; the clergyman enters the Church to gain 
‘a good living’’; in education the teacher is awaiting an 
opportunity to be married. ‘‘Competition is the life of 
trade,’’ and competition never claimed to be anything 
except self-interest. Our whole social system is said to be 
founded on self-interest, and that is the trouble with it: 
we must all keep in the game. The demand exists that the 
whole economic order shall be overthrown, but overthrown 
in favor of what? Another group actuated by self-inter- 
ests opposing those of capitalism. 

Altruism.—In contrast with egoism, altruism is brought 
forward, that is, the good of others through appeal to sym- 
pathy, pity, benevolence; the call to charity, or service. 
This demand is based on society, supposedly later in origin 
than the individual, and in a measure in opposition to the 
individual. The problem then is to make the transition 
from egoism to altruism. The difficulty is great indeed, on 
the assumption that man is naturally and prevailingly self- 
seeking, if not selfish. Moralists have appealed to men in the 
name of duty to love the neighbor and dedicate themselves 
to his good. It is said that one ought to be unselfish, one 
‘fought’? to serve humanity. But the problem is to prove 
the duty of altruism. Assuming that pure altruism is the 

1The Leviathan, 1651. 


45 The Fable of the Bees, or Private Vices Made Public Benefits, 
1706. 


300 Goodness and Freedom 


moral ideal, while self-preservation is the order of nature, 
the moral life and nature have been put in sharpest antith- 
esis. A man does what is right when he is altruistic, 
whatever is egoistic is wrong. Hence there is so much to 
condemn in human nature and human life that the situa- 
tion seems hopeless. Christianity has set us the example 
of self-denial, but how indeed shall we rouse people to 
attain it? 

Naturalism as a Solution—McConnell has more cour- 
ageously faced the issues than most moralists.2 It may be 
admitted that duties to self and to others sometimes coin- 
cide, but what of cases where the interests of self and of 
others are antagonistic? Spencer fails to weigh egoism 
and altruism in the scales of moral worth. The organic 
view of society is not the whole truth: society is more 
nearly an aggregate of human individuals; human beings 
can isolate themselves from one another; the social organ- 
ization is psychical—an organization of thoughts, senti- 
ments, desires, volitions, consciences—entirely different 
from a biological organism. The analogy is not indeed a 
good one. It is not clear that the good of each is insepa- 
rably bound up with the good of the parts. 

The only recourse seems then for me to say: ‘‘You can 
never succeed in finding in my good a durable point of 
union with yours; my interests never cease at bottom to 
repel each other.’’ I should strive after what is good for 
myself without considering whether others’ welfare is 
thereby furthered or hindered. ‘‘Under the outward form 
of mutual regard there is always an armed peace. . . . In- 
stinct conserves self; habitude conserves self; all the 
natural tendencies conserve self; evolution conserves and 
enlarges self... .’’* By contrast it might indeed be said 
that ‘‘egoism rests upon the dogmatic assertion of an iso- 
lated ego, closed toward others, impenetrable . . . [but] 
real man is in the midst of a society of similar personal 
beings. .. . The isolated man [is] a pure abstraction.’’5 
Yet the contrast is real, and the need of a solution im- 


3R. M. McConnell, The Duty of Altruism, 1910. 
4 Op. cit., p. 9. 5 Ibid., p. 13. 


The Worth of the Individual 301 


perative. The theological attempt at a rational solution 
fails because it takes refuge in something transcendental, 
inexplicable, mysterious, unintelligible, conjectural.® Meta- 
physics does not offer a satisfactory explanation. Kant, 
for instance, can not even admit the conflict of duties, igno- 
rance, or indecision.’ However, the civil law may under- 
take to settle the problem of obligation, no external reeu- 
lation can excuse the individual from reflective thinking. 
Logic is no real help, for altruism is not determined by 
logical considerations; logic is not strong enough to re- 
strain a man: will is more primary and fundamental than 
intellect. The psychological explanation is not convinc- 
ing on, the point that we ought to be altruistic; if egoism 
and altruism were born together, evidence is lacking that 
altruism is to be preferred to egoism.* There are men who 
are altruistic, but why should a man be so? Evolutionary 
ethics supplies no regulative principle, it does not supply 
a sure ground for moral obligation. 

Altruism as a Natural Fact—When McConnell exam- 
ines reason and will, he comes to his solution. Although 
he is unable to accept the view that ideas are forces—since 
experience is prior to thought, and sympathy is prior to 
movements of thought founded on it—he does indeed find 
that will is prior and fundamental, in contrast with rea- 
son.° Ideals are not purely intellectual, but are products 
of the whole character, especially of the will; and so an 
accepted ideal is indeed a foree. ‘‘The thought must be 
recognized and affirmed by the will as valid and binding. 
If I obey the idea, it is because I believe it good, and be- 
cause I love and will the good which the idea represents. 
It is the will that ascribes or denies value to the idea. . . 
The idea is not a finality. . . . The theoretical is not first 
and the practical second. No man ever sacrificed self as 
the result of a conclusion due wholly to reason.’’1° The 
result for McConnell is emphasis on the will as a product 

6 Ibid., Chap. II. 

7 Ibid., p. 34. 

8 Ibid., p. 115. 


9 Ibid., Chap. IX. 
10 [bid., p. 180. 


302 Goodness and Freedom 


of nature. It is one’s nature to be selfish, another’s nature 
to be unselfish. The duty of acting contrary to one’s 
nature can not, he holds, be demonstrated to any man. 
Nor can the duty to love others be proved to the man 
who does not love others. Goodness is not indeed the 
product of the intellect. It would be absurd to argue for 
‘‘duty for duty’s sake.’’ 

What then is McConnell’s solution? The ‘‘ought’’ rests 
upon the is; human conduct is subject to natural laws; 
and so it is a question: What does the individual will? 
How can he attain what he wills? It is merely a question 
of means to ends; the ought is ‘‘only a logical accord of 
the consequence with the principle.’’ ‘‘Moral science and 
moral philosophy can not change an egoist into an altruist. 
Differences of character are inborn and unchangeable. 
The bad man is bad from birth.’’ A wrong will is essen- 
tially and permanently bad, a bad act is due to something 
inherent in our nature. Duty is in line with the tendency 
already being taken by the will. One’s own nature is the 
judge of what is good, what is bad. An ideal then is con- 
sciousness of the will’s fundamental direction or aim: in 
the ideal life every power would be perfectly active. 
Hence McConnell puts great stress on ‘‘the will to live the 
largest life.’’ Both egoism and altruism are abnormalities. 
Man already wills to be social. Generosity is inseparable 
from man’s existence.!2 ‘‘Life can maintain itself only 
on the condition that it expands, grows, gives of itself.’’ 
Hence there is every reason for activity, expression, giv- 
ing, unfolding, developing, expanding, loving; morality 
is indeed ‘‘the result of superabundance of life, interior 
expression,’’ and it is justified only because the individual 
wills it. 

Objections to the Naturalistic View.—Taken merely as 
it reads, this view involves rejection of the distinction that 
ethics is a normative science; it gives up the idea of duty 
altogether. The bare fact remains that one either is or 
is not prompted by love toward God and the neighbor. 


11 Ibid., p. 194. 
12 Ibid., p. 231. 


The Worth of the Individual 303 


If the bad man is and remains bad, while the good was 
born so; if it be a question of a perverse will, in the case 
of the wrong-doer ; then indeed many distinctions fall, and 
with them most of our efforts to aid one another will nat- 
urally cease. If ‘‘my own nature is judge of what is 
good, and what is bad,’’ we are back where Socrates found 
the Sophists. There is then no ground for objections to 
hedonism, not even in its psychological or egoistie form. 

Yet McConnell’s argument is for the most part directed 
against the artificial sundering of altruism from egoism: 
it strongly reinforces the conviction that virtue is natural, 
that there is in us an urge prompting us toward self- 
realization or the fullness of life. One must accept most of 
his conclusions, while still maintaining that there is a 
moral constant in human thought and life, in our con- 
sciences, sense of duty; hence that duty is fundamental, 
is to be recognized as yielding a standard such that we can 
rationally pass from mere nature to the adoption of a valid 
ideal. McConnell too greatly separates will and reason, 
and so he fails to see the force of the great rationalistic 
movement from Plato and Aristotle to modern times. It 
is reason which, limiting will at times, discerns the ideal 
of the largest life in its rich content. Morality is not 
the result of will alone, in its expression of nature’s super- 
abundant life. It is not, as Aristotle has shown, a ques- 
tion of capacities or potentialities only, but of criticism 
through the life of reason. From Plato and Aristotle we 
might long ago have learned why egoism and altruism are 
not separable: the self which needed knowledge and de- 
velopment was for them already the social self. Man is 
by capacity at once many-sided, individual, capable of con- 
tributing to his fellows that adequate self-expression which 
is service, as we would now say. 

Altruistic Origins—Psychology tends to confirm the 
intimate relationship of those dispositions of our nature 
which originally make for egoism and altruism, while 
social psychology, as we have noted, advances further still 
toward an essentially social view of the self as a whole. 
It would be difficult to substantiate the view nowadays that 


304 Goodness and Freedom 


altruism is concealed egoism. What can be shown is that 
sympathetic-altruistic and egoistic motives come together. 
Since there is no break due to the opposition of faculties, 
there is no need of trying to make the transition from the 
one to the other as moralists once essayed to make it. The 
real contrast is the one which we have been considering 
from the first, namely, between what ‘‘is’’ and what ought 
to be. The mere fact of the existence of altruistic emotions 
would be no guarantee that their expression would mean 
moral goodness as a standard; for it would still be a ques- 
tion what emotions, such as pity or sympathy, are eligible, 
and how these are to be organized. There is abundant 
evidence that man’s more distinctively ‘‘gregarious’’ in- 
stinets are as surely native to the individual as the over- 
heralded ‘‘instinet of self-preservation.’’ The trend of 
ethical thought is away from the old-time position. It is 
no longer usual to say, with Spencer, that egoism comes 
before altruism, as the first requisite to universal welfare, 
or that egoism is ultimate and must take precedence over 
altruism.*? 

The Reaction Against Egoism.—The thorough-going 
egoist 1s abhorred in theory as in practice, and egoism is 
condemned by organized humanity as expressed in custom, 
law, public opinion; and this reaction is on moral 
srounds.'* It is the common good that is urged. The social 
conscience has demanded self-sacrifice on the part of the 
individual, even the laying down of his life if need be; and 
has opposed egoistie calculation. ‘‘The very existence of 
the family, the tribe, the state is a protest against pure 
egoism.’’ +> Public opinion, sitting in moral judgment, 
sees in the pleasure-seeker an egoist. We have noted the 
fact that hedonism in its egoistic form quickly ran itself 
out. Egoism as a theory proves indeed to be as inconsis- 
tent as self-sacrifice, taken by itself. Even in popular 
morality there is ‘‘an unbalanced combination’’ of egoism 


13 Data of Ethics, Secs. 68, 69. 

14 Fullerton, op. cit., p. 212. 

15 [bid., p. 217. Cf. Palmer, Altruism, its Nature and Varieties, 
p. 8. 


The Worth of the Individual 305 


and altruism, rather than explicit egoism.1*° It is indeed 
difficult to approximate consistency with either term. 

Paulsen maintains that there is no duty towards indi- 
vidual life which can not be construed as a duty toward 
others, none towards others that can not be shown to be 
a duty towards self.17 The acquisition of wealth seems 
to be the central purpose of our egoistic strivings; yet in- 
dustry, energy, and frugality are no less truly duties 
towards others. It is proverbial that ‘‘honesty is the best 
policy,”’ that ill-gotten goods seldom prosper, and that dis- 
honesty deadens the desire for honest acquisition, while 
theft is always an uncertain and precarious means of live- 
lihood. In actual life our motives are always mingled. In- 
deed the strange assumption many have made is that every 
act must have one motive; as if duties toward self and 
toward others were mutually exclusive.t® Even in case 
of self-sacrifice motives are numerous and are blended. 
‘* Every self-sacrifice is at the same time self-preservation, 
namely, preservation of the zdeal self; indeed, it is the 
proudest kind of self-assertion for me to sacrifice myself, 
for me to stake my life in battling for a good which I 
esteem higher than my life. There is always a ‘selfish’ 
element in it; ‘unselfish’ eonduct is a contradiction in 
terms. The self is always involved, it sacrifices a good 
only for a higher good, possessions for fame, a good name 
for a good conscience, life for the freedom and honor of the 
people.’’?® Life indeed is not such an antagonistic affair 
as some moralists have tried to make out. It is not a con- 
stant struggle between mine and thine. Nor is the sacri- 
fice of individual interest for those of others always a duty ; 
or the sacrifice of personal interests, even when the welfare 
of others is promoted, invariably meritorious and praise- 
worthy.” 

The Individual as Starting-point—If then we con- 
clude that self-regarding and_other-regarding tendencies 

16 Dewey and Tufts, Ethics, p. 369. 

17 Op. cit., p. 383. 

18 Ibid., p. 386. 


19 Ibid., p. 389. 
20 Ibid., p. 391. 


306 Goodness and Freedom 


are to be understood together, the first need is to assign 
the individual to his appropriate place. In so doing we 
may be free to use the symbol of the ‘‘organism’’ by way 
of illustration of the intimate relation between the indi- 
vidual and his group, despite any objection, remembering 
that it is a symbol, that no analogy drawn from things in 
Space is adequate to portray codperation between selves. 

In beginning with the facts of the individual’s con- 
sciousness, we start with data which any one can verify. 
Any sure approach to knowledge of society must take ac- 
count of the fact that society consists of conscious beings, 
not of ‘‘units’’ constituting a group, which somehow has 
a “‘mind.’’ All knowledge of the inner life of other people 
necessarily begins with a measure of self-knowledge. 
Moral consciousness begins with the individual, whatever 
the decrees and power of society over the individual by 
appeal to custom. Moral reform starts with the indi- 
vidual. Any change or moral growth in which the in- 
dividual participates takes place from within outward. 
The individual must see the situation in which a change 
is called for, must acknowledge its meaning or value; and 
probably he will be called on to admit his own motives, to 
recognize conduct that is wrong. It is the individual who 
cleaves to a standard as ‘‘right,’’ who takes a moral op- 
portunity. The moral response, if made at all, must be 
made by the individual, and in freedom. No one can make 
a moral decision or take a moral step for another, al- 
though at times the individual may do little more than 
give assent to the advice of another. It is the individual 
who sees the need of a scale of values, who realizes obliga- 
tion, discerns the power of the moral law, becomes aware 
of the ought; and by acquiring a dominant desire which 
enlists varied dispositions develops a purpose sufficient to 
unify or strengthen character. It is the individual who 
makes effort, overcomes obstacles; learns his relation to he- 
redity and environment through education and experience, 
and by adaptation to the social order of which he is a mem- 
ber. He it is who must make the adjustrnents, adapting him- 
self to all kinds of social situations. Whatever society does 


The Worth of the Individual 307 


for him, he must find himself through reactions to de- 
mands made upon him, while he earns his living, meets 
the requirements of varied groups expecting more of him 
than he can do except by a process of selection between 
loyalties. Society helps a man discover his function, but 
it is the man himself who learns his limitations. The more 
highly selective he becomes the more truly individual. In 
fe, human evolution is by individuation. 

The individual, in uncorrected beginnings, tends to de- 
velop self-love to the extreme; hence comes egotism, self- 
conceit, selfishness. But out of self-reliance may come 
strength, efficiency, and eventually enlargement of interests 
and motives so that other-regarding motives occupy a 
larger place than self-regarding. Profound belief in one’s 
abilities is essential to success in the moral as in any other 
field. The limited self-culture of one period of a man’s 
development may greatly contribute to the productive 
service of the next. In any case the individual is the 
ground and starting-point of moral development, and we 
have repeatedly seen that natural content is essential to 
moral form: self-assertion belongs to the natural stage, self- 
realization to the moral. 

Self-love and Altruism.—Where it was once customary 
to dwell on the differences between egoism and altruism, 
the more recent tendency is to point to the resemblances. 
Rashdall holds that we can not distinguish between the 
good a man does to himself and the good he bestows on 
others. ‘‘True human good consists in activities which are 
at once my good and the good of others.’’ One man’s con- 
tribution to the general good, in its quantity and quality is 
never exactly the same as that of another man. Unlike- 
nesses and inequalities accompany differentiation in social 
progress. Differentiation involves exceptional sacrifice 
for some, exceptional advantages and enjoyment for others. 
The true good of every individual is necessarily unlike that 
of every other.*? 

So too Alexander points out that morality is itself the 
answer to the problem of reconciling the manifold likes 


21Op. ctt., Vol. I, p. 277. 


308 Goodness and Freedom 


and dislikes of many persons. ‘‘Self-love and love of others 
describe the moral relation from opposite ends. . . . Every 
act of respect for others is an act of self-furtherance. Self- 
furtherance turns to selfishness when the gratification is 
incompatible with the moral development of others.’’ *? 

The Basis of Values.—It is a question then of putting 
matters in right relation so that we understand in what 
sense the individual is the basis of values. From the point 
of view of individualism the situation is forcefully put 
by Warner Fite: (1) the individual is the original source 
and constituent of all value, and there is no higher stand- 
ard of obligation than that set by our personal ends and 
ideals; (2) in a community of conscious beings, the per- 
sonal interests of the several individuals are strictly codr- 
dinate, each is committed to a consideration of the ends of 
each of the others; (3) but this is possible only through 
consciousness or codrdinateness of interests as a function 
of self-consciousness.?* The individual is (1) external as 
he appears to others, (2) internal as he appears to himself. 
In the latter sense the individual’s act is not the effect of 
a cause, but the expression of a reason, defined by a mean- 
ing or purpose. I, the spiritual individual, am not coex- 
tensive with the mass of my body; but indeterminate. Yet 
as self-conscious I am perfectly determinate, with my con- 
erete interests. 

Outwardly I am seen as part of the mechanical order of 
nature; but inwardly as part of an idealistic social order, 
a society of conscious individuals united by consciousness 
of kind, with functions to fulfill in the social organism. 
The individual can guard himself from putting too much 
emphasis on the unity of society by being mindful of the 
fact that his needs and instincts are not necessarily in 
harmony with those of his fellows. The meaning which 
defines our consciousness and makes us truly individual 
must be our own meaning. ‘‘If the glory of God is not also 
my glory, and the salvation of society not also my salva- 


22S. Alexander, Moral Order and Progress, 1889, p. 172. 
23 Individualism, 1911, p. 5. 


The Worth of the Indimdual 309 


tion, then God and society are necessarily strangers to 
mea, 34 

The interests of human individuals are not essentially 
in harmony because this harmony is divinely pre-estab- 
lished; not by heredity, or by social education; nor even 
by mysterious ‘‘consciousness of kind’’: but because men 
are conscious beings and know themselves and one another. 
It is consciousness which creates the unity. The unity is 
not gained by mutual concession of individual claims, but 
by complete fulfillment of all individual purposes. The 
intelligence which enables us to adjust our actions to our 
physical environment ought to enable us to adjust our 
actions to one another. 

The Union of Opposites.—To accept this view is to find 
that many of the problems once raised have ceased to be, 
for they were due to an artificial conception of the indi- 
vidual, which in turn arose through an old-time psychology. 
Other problems were due to the bare assertion that all 
men were born free and equal; or that there would have 
been equality of opportunity if the existing social order 
had been different. In contrast with any materialistic 
interpretation of history, economie determinism, or any 
other substitution of external for internal values, ethical 
idealism conceives of the individual from the point of view 
of the inner life by taking the clue from consciousness. 
In our consciousness we find actually attained that unity 
in diversity which is the despair of all seekers for harmony 
in material things. For, as we have constantly noted in 
the foregoing chapters, our several powers interpenetrate 
so that cognition, desire, will, thought, and feeling may 
all be operative at the same time. Our awareness of an 
object may involve many interests, also one dominant ideal 
or purpose. Our desires may be manifold, and, taken 
one by one, in sharp contrast if not in conflict; yet there 
ean also be a centralizing universe of desire. It is this in- 
ward union of opposites, interpenetrated by a purpose, 
which should give us the idea of what it means to be an 
individual. A moral judgment discloses the possibility of 


24 Op. cit., p. 27. 


310 Goodness and Freedom 


being one and the same person in any number of acts, of 
realizing one and the same purpose where to all appear- 
ances there is a mere assemblage of aims and values. Our 
consciousness is remarkable for its inclusiveness. Hence 
a conscious alm can never be exclusive. Like an idea, it 
is both itself and includes aims other than itself.*® 

Consciousness as the Type.—The function of conscious- 
ness is not merely to select one aim to the exclusion of 
others, but involves the selection of acts which will com- 
pletely realize all our aims. Thus consciousness, by its 
ideal of mutual inclusiveness, genuinely many, yet as gen- 
uinely one, yields the ideal or type. In this unity one 
thing is not sacrificed for the sake of another, but the 
course is chosen which will attain both. It is this inelu- 
sive selection which distinguishes the conscious act. It is 
your consciousness which makes you an individual per- 
son. As a conscious being you are necessarily both here 
and there, both yesterday and today. Thus consciousness 
involves an infinitely graduated and indefinitely extended 
scale. The measure of your consciousness is the precise 
measure of your individuality.?® 

The reality of consciousness means its efficiency: to know 
what you are doing makes a difference. You also know 
what you were doing yesterday and mean to do tomorrow. 
Thus to understand our conduct is to realize that we act 
now not merely from personal stimulus but from unity 
of personal interests. Consciousness as thus deseribed is 
the antithesis of chance-action, and so it is more than ever 
law-governed, But the implied law is the consistent ex- 
pression of one’s personal meaning. The conscious indi- 
vidual, regarded as a free agent, is free to do what seems 
best when all things are considered. So in becoming a 
conscious individual a man becomes an end in himself. 
Fite avoids the formalism of Kant by insisting that a dis- 
interested choice is absolutely out of the question, for con- 
sciousness involves a reference to an individual and per- 
sonal point of view. In other words, nothing is known to 


25 Fite, op. cit., p. 64. 
26 Ibid., p. 80. 


The Worth of the Individual 311 


me as an individual save that which involves an expres- 
sion of my attitude. 

The Social Relation.—A strong point in favor of this 
view is its synthesis of knowing with action. It is not in- 
teraction alone which constitutes a social relation, since 
each agent must know himself: A social relation is a self- 
conscious relation.2”7 Mutual understanding is essential. 
There is need of a system of mutual ends determined in 
mutual freedom and agreement. There is then no con- 
tradiction between social welfare and individual freedom. 
Duty of self-sacrifice for the common good would be a 
paradox and unintelligible. By becoming conscious an 
individual does not become less self-regarding, but more 
so. Since an organization means a union of differences, 
in which individual differences are not to be transcended 
or destroyed, each man must know himself far more acutely 
in order to realize himself. The individuality which this 
argument pleads for can never be transcended. ‘‘In the 
measure of the individuality which is realized is to be 
found the measure of the reality of the social organiza- 
tion.’’?8 The social good is not a common good, but is 
mutual and distributive.?9 

This conclusion accords with the conception of goodness 
as self-realization. There is something in our nature which 
strongly impels us to be individual, to lose nothing from our 
varied powers of initiative. Hence our objection to any 
view which asserts equality of birth or affirms that equal- 
ity shall be imposed on us by society. There must some- 
how be individual values, so we reason, which we shall be 
able to preserve to, the utmost and yet do our duty. And 
the conviction is strong with many that the conduct which 
is to secure this end must spring from individual leaders, 
free to express themselves to the full; not hampered by any 
demand which puts society above the individual. Thus 
Sheldon holds that, ‘‘however fundamental are the social 
relations, individuals will always differ in endowment; for 


27 Ibid., p. 100. 
28 Ibid., p. 280. 
29 Ibid., p. 294. 


312 Goodness and Freedom 


each is not simply a social function, but real and unique 
in himself. Some will get their wants better satisfied than 
others. Equal opportunity will not insure equal distribu- 
tion of goods; the socialistic ideal is impractical. 
Successful enterprise can be carried on only by individual 
initiative and individual responsibility.’’ °° 

The Ideal Unity.—The terms ‘‘function’’ and ‘‘social 
organism’’ then are figurative. If we are ‘‘members one 
of another’’ it is by a higher relationship than any ex- 
ternal organization exhibits in full. Even the term ‘‘or- 
ganic perfection’’ is a figure of speech. No less faulty 
is the term ‘‘individualism’’ unless carefully qualified. To 
assume, with Leibnitz, that the harmony between indi- 
viduals is pre-established is to leave no room for real pro- 
ductivity. Better the pluralisms and dualisms which vari- 
ous philosophers have pleaded for than any asserted uni- 
son of wills. The unity amidst variety which is the ethical 
ideal is to be an achieved unity, first created in the con- 
sciousness of the individual, then in his conduct and then 
in codperation with others who have had the vision. The 
complete adjustment between individuals within society 
which is to be heaven on earth is at the outset a possibility 
only, not a plan. Something essential depends on the in- 
dividual, however great, yes, however divine his potentiali- 
ties. The harmony which we discover between what we 
have to give and what society in our day needs is not 
mechanical, as if by some subtle power of attraction we 
were able to draw to us those whom we can best serve. 
Nor is it a mere unfolding of our capacities in coincident 
rhythm with the manifestation of power in those most 
in accord with us. ) 

The Social Will.—Our nature involves the will that 
selects as well as the urge which attracts. If our choices 
‘‘converge upon some comprehensive end,’’ it is because 
our volitions have been ‘‘intelligently harmonized and uni- 
fied’’ in actual conduct.*t The social will for which Ful- 
lerton pleads, as relatively permanent, but also moving 


30 W. H. Sheldon, Productive Indwiduality, 1918, p. 441. 
31 Fullerton, op. ctt., p. 169. 


The Worth of the Individual 313 


with more or less consistency toward comprehensive ends, 
with the clash of conflicting desires reduced to the mini- 
mum, is likewise an attainment, not an unfolding.*? It is 
only by the recognition of all wills that evolution of the 
enlightened social will is to follow. Moral intuitions as 
attainments are indispensable too.** Utilitarianism is to 
be assimilated in part, since there is no reason to ignore 
the fact that men do generally desire to gain pleasure and 
avoid pain: it is only the exaggeration of this truth that 
is to be combated. And so any term that is employed 
must be explained in accordance with the larger ethical 
thought of the day which seeks to be at once social and 
true to the individual, with his reason, enlightened will, 
moral intuitions. If the limitations of egoism and pessi- 
mism are seen, it is not necessary to plead for altruism. 
The argument for goodness as self-realization is through- 
out an argument for altruism. What now concerns us is 
to consider how the ideal is to be earried into practice. 

The Individual and Orthodoxy.— We may illustrate an- 
other phase of the life of the individual by the difficulties 
which beset the man of exceptional ability, notably in re- 
lation to the Church. We have traveled far from the 
times when men were burned at the stake or made victims 
of heresy trials. But there are other ways of making life 
miserable for those who love truth too well to recant. To 
cultivate their powers in marked degree men have turned 
to art or science, to public service or business. Statesmen 
earry on their affairs without paying much heed to the 
Church. 

In the arts it has been more customary to encourage 
talent and individuality. The artist surely works best 
who dedicates all his powers to Beauty. The medieval 
artist wrought his masterpieces under the inspiration of 
the Church, and we look back to that period as one of 
the great epochs in the history of art. But art was fos- 
tered by the Church rather than being ruled by it. The 
ideals of the two coincided for a time, as did the ideals 


82 See summary, op. cit., p. 174. 
33 Ibid., p. 289. 


314 Goodness and Freedom 


of the Beautiful, the True, and the Good in ancient Greece. 
The situation was very different in the field of science and 
philosophy. While theology ruled, science was quiescent ; 
and philosophy was practically a slave. The lovers of 
truth who laid the foundations of modern science had to 
fight for the privilege amidst constant dangers of martyr- 
dom. We now realize that the scholar must be wholly free 
to follow truth wherever his love for it may lead. Liberty 
to pursue truth in this way gave us the marvelous epoch of 
modern science. 

Creative Work.— What would equivalent freedom mean 
in the sphere of man’s religious activities? The question 
is a new one for some. We have not entertained the pos- 
sibility that creative work might be done for the moral 
and spiritual life, as an artist might produce a picture 
through direct observation of nature and life, instead of 
consulting authorities to see what may permissibly be 
portrayed. We lack a complete theory of what we call 
‘the creative instinct.’’ 

In the arts, when a young girl with a great voice is dis- 
covered she is put under the instruction of the best teachers 
in a musical atmosphere, and everything in her life is fos- 
tered by appeal to certain high standards; when a youth 
is found modeling beautiful figures in clay he is put in 
charge of masters who will help to develop his talent or 
genius to the full, for Beauty’s sake. We have separated 
the arts from the other disciplines, because we now recog- 
nize their rights, as we do those of science. 

We have tended to isolate matters pertaining to the 
Church, leaving them to specialists with their particular 
standards; while talents for the world’s activities at large 
are given over to our educational and practical systems. 
But if there is something akin in all creative work, we 
might well encourage people to find their places in religion 
as in every other sphere, so that there shall be free recog- 
ition of any of the Eternal Ideas, notably the relation of 
the Good to Beauty and Truth. Any work that is worth 
doing bears relation to the Ideas. We are preparing for 
our heavenly functions by doing earthly things well. The 


The Worth of the Individual 315 


spiritual life may be said to grow up out of the common 
occupations whenever man cherishes an ideal which ap- 
peals to his whole nature. 

Vocations.—The art of finding one’s place and of help- 
ing others to find themselves and their places may well be- 
come one of the greatest topics in the moral life.** Ideally 
speaking, every individual has his place, no two are alike, 
no two would fulfill precisely the same functions, no two 
would express absolutely the same sentiments; and there 
would be every reason for encouraging each individual 
to find an adequate form of self-expression and work. It 
may be that what is required of us in the moral order— 
instead of trying to reform people, by persuading them of 
our own views and ways—is to encourage each man to find 
his type and live his own life to the full. It may be that 
all our instincts are for productivity—not originally for 
mere self-preservation or egoism at all—and that we have 
been assiduously curbing them, if not trying to exterminate 
some of them. 

It was said of a great teacher in one of our universities 
that he ‘‘ereated men,’’ had creative insight into their 
type. This summoning of a man into power is the great- 
est creative work on earth. There is no subordination of 
the individual here. Each is recognized according to his 
inherent worth. This means a return to the sources of 
our best experience; it puts a new value upon human 
experience, and we note new reasons for learning from one 
another, by whatever road we have come, whatever we 
have seen and heard and felt along the way. Not all of 
us have heard as distinct a call as that which came to 
Paul on the road to Damascus, for we have not had the 
same need, we are not of the same type. But the call 
has been according to gradually recognized capacities and 
needs, in the light of the use made of individual experi- 
ence. In this the profounder view of human life the experi- 
ence of each of us is a revelation of the moral ideal. 

Limiting the Individual—In contrast with this recog- 
nition of the worth of the individual, we find many evi- 
dences of a wholly different attitude. In some of the in- 


84 Cf, Rashdall, op. cit., Vol. II, Chap. IV. 


316 Goodness and Freedom 


dustries, under the present system of organization, a man 
is expected to conform as strictly to the rules of the union 
to which he belongs as true believers once conformed to 
orthodoxy. The typical example is that of the brick- 
layers’ union, decreéing how many bricks a man shall lay 
in an hour, how many hours he shall work, and what 
grade of work he shall do. The man of skill must moderate 
his skill and the quick-motioned man must moderate his 
pace to fit the deadly average. Ifa grievance arises, a man 
must strike with the others if ordered to do so. He has 
little freedom and few opportunities for initiative. These 
conditions prevail in varied forms in the economic world. 
Even in what we eall the higher walks of life conformity 
is also the rule. Thus one finds either an external system 
applied to men as soldiers are organized into an imperial 
army; or, rules, a system, a creed, a political machine or 
other scheme managed by the few and put upon the many. 
Even teachers must teach what conservatives insist upon. 
The result is that men of real ability feel restrained and 
eramped. The moral problem is to show that the ideal 
of creative individuality is not incompatible with society 
as it exists today. Conservatism, doing its deadly work, 
strives against the individual; and so it becomes a question, 
not of egoism and altruism as of old, but of conservatism 
and progress. ‘To ascend the scale of values is to en- 
counter varied leveling influences struggling to keep man 
where he is. But there need be no moral antagonism be- 
tween the conservation of values and the effort of the 
individual to contribute his best life. The individual dis- 
covers himself by what he overcomes. A man’s experiences 
fit him for his greater work. Egoism, with its extremes, 
is a passing stage only, like the pursuit of pleasure as 
an end in itself. Emerson reminds us that society is a 
conspiracy against the individual, and that ‘‘whoso would 
be a man must be a nonconformist.’’ What is needed is 
horizon, that a man may put first things first. A man also 
needs to understand his repressions, including those put 
upon him as the skilled mason or carpenter is checked by 
the mandates of the labor union. Meanwhile there are alsa 


The Worth of the Individual Sy 


resources in the realm of the eternal values, however lim- 
ited the opportunities accorded us by our mundane occu- 
pations. There are resources too in the old-time interest 
in work well done for work’s sake, with conscience, en- 
thusiasm, over and above any question of the number of 
hours and the compensation. All the higher values may 
well be pursued as if each were independent. The indi- 
vidual finds himself; society grants the conditions, dis- 
closes the occasions. The social group exists for the benefit 
of individuals. Our argument does not lead to the con- 
elusion that the state is above the individual, that the uni- 
versal can rightfully impose itself. The individual is 
neither a mere unit, nor a mere organ, function, or official. 
We are ‘‘members one of another.’’ Our relationship is 
moral, It is a matter of consciousness, of attitude, of life. 

Questions.—In what sense is virtue its own reward? 

What is the surest way to keep one’s conscience clean ? 

What is the value of such a maxim as, ‘‘Honesty is the 
best policy’’? 

Is all good action conscious action? 

In what respects is self-sacrifice a leap in the dark? 

Is happiness in any respect a criterion of goodness? 

How far can a person be distinguished from his environ- 
ment ? 

What is the objection to the idea of absolute chance in 
the universe? 

Is individualism a complete moral ideal? 

What is the function of a social ideal? 

How are ideals formed ? 

How can duality of self be overcome? 

To what extent is it desirable that conduct should be 
mechanized, and therefore predictable? 

When is the prediction of conduct offensive? 

Does an ideal always appear in the mind as a present 
fact, or has it other qualities or powers? 

Is the sense of duty equivalent to respect for law? 

Is any view of duty compatible with the purpose of each 
man to realize himself? 

Can the idea of self-organization become too prominent? 


318 Goodness and Freedom 


Would not a course of conduct which resulted in human 
misery be abandoned; and, if so, is this an argument in 
favor of hedonism? 

Would perfect morality blot out duty? 

In what sense is intuition a guide to right conduct? 

What is the moral value of ‘‘the still small voice’’? 

Is the existence of evil an insuperable objection to belief 
in the moral goodness of the universe? 

Is moral experience in general worth what it costs? 

Is it probable that a man’s ideal of complete social self- 
realization coincides with the divine purpose? 

What part does faith play in meeting the issues of the 
moral life? 


REFERENCES 


SPENCER, H., The Data of Ethics, 1879, Chaps. XI, XII. 

BraDueY, F. H., Hthical Studies, 1876, Chap. VII. 

PAULSEN, F., System of Ethics, trans., Bk. II, Chap. VI. 

Mackenziz, J. 8., Manual of Ethics, Bk. III, Chap. I. 

Dewey AND Turts, Ethics, Chap. XVIII. 

TEN BROEKE, J., The Moral Life and Religion, Chaps. V1, VII. 

FULLERTON, G. 8., Handbook of Ethical Theory, pp. 160, 174, 212. 

Dresser, H. W., Psychology in Theory and Application, Bk. 
IIT. 

Fite, W., Individualism, 1911. 

RASHDALL, H., The Theory of Good and Evil, Vol. II, Chap. IV. 

McConneE LL, R. M., The Duty of Altruism, 1910. 

STEPHEN, L., The Science of Hthics, Chap. VI. 


Part THREE 


THE MORAL LIFE 


CHAPTER XX 
THE VIRTUES 


The Value of Knowledge.—Ethics, we have seen, is not 
a purely practical science. It does not undertake to tell 
individuals what to do, does not promise to make men bet- 
ter. Yet one can hardly follow any ethical system to the 
end without finding practical issues cleared up, without 
gaining an impetus to live more wisely; for ethics counsels 
man to know, to be, and to do. We have all been reared 
amid some kind of moral teaching, and the study of ethics 
is inevitably in part a criticism of the views we have ac- 
quired. Moreover, there is a large measure of truth in the 
Socratic teaching that knowledge is virtue; hence increase 
of ethical knowledge insensibly tends towards benefit. It 
has been said that all knowledge affects practice, although 
not all knowledge guides it. 

If the intuitionist theory in extreme form were true, 
experience would not be required, and we would need only 
to consult the appropriate section of our moral code. But 
if the empirical theories were adequate, it would be solely 
a matter of practice. It is idealistic ethics which yield 
rich results, since theory and practice are brought into 
closest relation. Study shows that it makes a great differ- 
ence what conclusions we reach concerning desire, love of 
pleasure, egoism, pessimism, self-sacrifice, conscience, and 

319 


320 The Moral Infe 


other subjects which have come before us. We have not 
been led to the conclusion that those principles only are 
to be adopted which can be fully applied at once. Unex- 
pected practical values appear in the course of time. Even 
the formal ethics of Kant, with its neglect of the content 
of duty, has practical value. 

Morality we have defined as ethics in practice, the moral 
life. The study of it not only involves knowledge of the 
inner life of the individual but knowledge of the condi- 
tions of social welfare in our own age. Granted a concep- 
tion of goodness defended against objections, the problem 
is to consider how this conception can be carried into prac- 
tice. It is one thing to understand right action, another 
to see why men encounter difficulties in endeavoring to 
realize ideals, why men do not always act rightly. Emer- 
son reminds us that ‘‘the step from knowing to doing is 
rarely taken.’’ Increasing knowledge of ethical principles 
has not been followed by equal increase of effort in making 
knowledge virtue. Moral teachers in touch with all types 
of men still appeal to philosophers to know how to arouse 
the moral will. Even when loyalty, brotherhood, love, 
service is accepted as the ruling motive, it is a question 
how to embody this motive in productive conduct. It is 
our province to consider the application of ethics to prac- 
tice so far at least as the virtues are concerned, the implied 
rules of action, and the problem of human nature in rela- 
tion to virtue. 

The Nature of Virtue—Under other terms, we have 
already considered virtue in the foregoing chapters. For 
we have regarded the moral standard as involving unity, 
consistency, integrity, insight into goodness and its ele- 
ments; and each topic we have taken up was an approach 
to the same subject. To do one’s duty, act rightly, realize 
goodness in practice is virtue; one’s duties imply the vir- 
tues, and to possess integrity at the center is to manifest 
it in lines of conduct proceeding from this ‘‘purity of 
heart,’’ this kingdom to be sought before all others. Yet 
the term virtue, although it originally stood for ‘‘duty’’ 
as defined in a later period of moral history, is also used 


The Virtues 321 


in another sense with reference to goodness carried into 
practice in the inner life of the individual and in the social 
order. 

Virtue is what man possesses who is faithful to the moral 
ideal, who does his duty in specific situations, instead of 
allowing it to remain a general principle. It is the per- 
manent character of the will, attained through single de- 
cisions of will, successive appeals to moral reason; stead- 
fastness in the direction of the will toward the moral end; 
determinateness of the ideational, emotional, and volitional 
life. It implies regularity or orderliness in mental proc- 
esses, modes of conduct which spring from imtegrity or 
constancy of character as its basis. Hence it is a many 
in one, involving various inner attitudes or modes of ex- 
pressing character. 

The Greek View.—For Plato and Aristotle goodness 
and the virtues were one, the several virtues being the 
characteristic activities making for the good as the ideal 
end. Virtue was said to appeal to the man of intelligence 
as the natural or reasonable thing. It was not then neces- 
sary to introduce duty as an additional motive. Aristotle 
held that the virtues are habits of deliberate choice due 
to stability of character and the attainment of the mean, 
which in his system is the essence of virtue. Accordingly 
he characterized most of the chief virtues by indicating the 
extremes to be avoided. 

The term virtue naturally suggests the Greek concep- 
tion, with various maxims for the guidance of the individ- 
ual; whereas the Hebraic conception suggests the Com- 
mandments, which pertain to overt acts and prohibitions, 
while the modern Christian term is duty. The virtues first 
emphasized by the Greeks relate to the individual, with 
the personal habit of valuation in mind. The Greeks ex- 
pected to attain virtue because they regarded man as con- 
stituted for it; hence the emphasis on self-knowledge and 
self-culture, in contrast with appeal to the supernatural 
in the early Christian scheme. Granted a prevailing atti- 
tude or disposition toward virtue, every virtue can be 
acquired through effort, and mastery over the irrational 


322 The Moral Lrfe 


impulses. Virtue thus regarded has been ealled a well- 
spring of right deeds, the will which leads one continually 
to right actions. 

Classifications—From the individual virtues, such as 
temperance, courage, the more social virtues, chiefly jus- 
tice, follow. Piety and reverence were later distinguished 
as the religious virtues. The cardinal virtues in Plato’s 
scheme are wisdom, temperance, courage and justice. The 
theologic virtues, also known as the triad of Christian 
graces, are faith, hope, and charity; contrasted in the 
medieval period with the deadly and venial sins. The 
virtues have also been classed with reference to the exer- 
cise of the higher intellectual and esthetic powers; and 
those which consist in due control of the lower impulses, 
such as temperance, purity, and the other self-regarding 
duties.2, It would be impossible to draw up a table of 
virtues to be agreed upon for any length of time; since 
very much depends on the prevailing view of human na- 
ture, the customs which supply content, the philosophy or 
theology which happens to be in vogue. Belief in the first 
and last things of the Christian life was once so great a 
virtue that even to believe what seemed absurd was right, 
to doubt was sin. Hope ‘‘springs eternal in the human 
breast’’ according to needs and occasions. Love ‘‘comes,’’ 
it is not often regarded as a duty: its expression through 
charity depends on social theory. The Greek virtues are 
no longer disparaged as ‘‘pagan’’ or as ‘‘splendid vices.’’ 
What signifies in any period is whole-hearted interest in 
the direction or mode of life in which virtue is being ex- 
pressed. Virtue in any age implies integrity, purity of 
heart, or sincerity. Hence the force of the term ‘‘cardi- 
nal’’ as applied to the virtues, namely, the virtues which 
are essential to morality. 

Prudence.—It is customary, from one ethical point of 
view, to discriminate rather sharply between prudence and 
duty. Martineau’s distinction is clearest.2 In moral judg- 

1See Sidgwick, History of Ethics, p. 134. 


2 Rashdall, The Theory of Good and Evil, Vol, I, p. 192. 
3 Types of Ethical Theory, 1891, Vol. II, p. 70. 


The Virtues 323 


ments we discriminate the springs of action within us; in 
the prudential we are concerned with the effects of action 
upon ourselves. Moral judgments anticipate action, while 
prudence has to wait for it. Ethically speaking, an act 
contrary to what we judge to be higher (right), in the 
presence of a lower alternative, would be a sin; but an 
act contrary to prudence would be a blunder. In our moral 
judgments conscience is already given, latent, whereas pru- 
dence is arrived at through experience, and we are im- 
prudent from lack of experience. It is essential to moral 
discernment that it be spontaneous, not a mere product of 
experience. There is indeed a natural order of values, 
according to the strength of our promptings; but this pru- 
dential scale is variable. Prudence then is definable as 
‘‘self-surrender to the strongest impulse,’’ while accept- 
ance of duty would be ‘‘self-surrender to the highest.’’ 4 

Although we ean not fully agree with Martineau, for 
reasons given in discussing his theory of the springs of 
action,®? we note the fact that prudence is not necessarily 
ethical, it may stop with the individual’s private interests. 
It is a matter of prudence for a man to fit into the eco- 
nomic scheme, to ‘‘play the game,’’ be on the alert in 
the sharp struggle for existence in the world of trade; and 
to earn enough for a good livelihood, to provide for a 
rainy day, for possible hard times, illness, and for old age. 
So-called ‘‘worldly wisdom”’ is in point here, namely, what 
is proverbial or axiomatic. For example, it is said to 
‘‘pay’’ to be honest. Again, it is matter of prudence, 
that is, of hygiene, to eat a wise amount of food, to take 
sufficient exercise, rest, sleep, recreation; to protect one’s 
self against wet and cold weather, to eat and drink with 
due care in extremely hot weather. One keeps good hours 
to keep fit, playing occasionally, taking a vacation now 
and then, in order to avoid routine or servitude to circum- 
stance. If you are a day-worker rather than a night- 
worker, it is well to know this fact and keep to your type. 
Again, one acquires the best method of work, one con- 


4 Ibid., p. 74. 
5 See above, Chap. XV. 


394 The Moral Life 


centrates, adapting hours, plans, and the whole scheme 
of life to fit the occupation. One learns to be patient, per- 
sistent, gradually acquiring the art of success.2 To be 
prudent is also to do what is politic or long-headed. Hence 
people await occasions for putting their plans through, 
they seek influence, use their friends, disguise their real 
motives under the pretense of virtue. On the other hand 
it is duty or love which prompts one to care for a sick 
mother, to visit the widowed and fatherless, and help the 
poor; and at times, when self-neglectful in social service, 
one may pass far beyond what is prudent in personal care 
and efficiency. It is not now a question of what ‘‘pays,”’ 
but of what is right; not what is customary or expected, 
but what is best; not for myself, but what I owe to others; 
not mere physical health, but also moral health. 

It is impossible however to distinguish prudence as mere 
egoism and separate all matters of duty from all pru- 
dential matters, under the head of altruism. We have seen 
that the two are found together and belong together. Most 
items of prudence rightfully belong under the head of the 
moral life. One must keep fit, to realize the higher self. 
While prudence is not necessarily moral, it is essential to 
morality, notably in case of the individual virtues, such 
as temperance. The honesty which merely ‘‘pays’’ in the 
economic world becomes a virtue in the moral. It does 
more than pay to be virtuous. The question of integrity 
so enters in that one sees it to be essential to individual life. 
Unless you are faithful, true, upright, your life is scarcely 
worth developing to the point of efficiency or success. 

To arouse greater interest in moral issues, a teacher of 
ethics in one of our leading colleges once began his course 
by an experimental appeal. Instead of first defining terms, 
analyzing principles, and classic types of ethical theory, 
he asked his students to take careful note during a week 
of the way they lived and worked, what methods of study 
were efficient, what habits of life successful, what rules 
effective, and what was prudent in general; and to report 


6 On thrift, punctuality, commercial honor, see Rogers, The Theory 
of Ethics, 1922, p. 168. 


The Virtues 395 


on what they had learned from experience, untaught as 
they were in the science of moral conduct. The result was 
a deeply suggestive discovery in regard to better modes of 
living, study, arranging hours, adapting habits; increased 
interest in temperamental differences, in character, ideals, 
standards of Judgment; and a desire to know how one 
could acquire a scale of values. In short, these prudential 
matters quickly led over into the typical considerations 
which imply the Greek conception of virtue. 

Self-control— Although it is an element of individual 
virtue, rather than a virtue, as such, self-control is re- 
garded as moral in so far it implies knowledge of what 
is to be controlled through the supremacy of the higher 
self. Self-control involves rational will or wise choice, and 
organization of our powers. Paulsen defines it as ‘‘ capacity 
to govern life by purposes and ideals.’’? It is thus the 
fundamental condition of the virtues, the fundamental 
pre-condition of human worth, the basis of freedom and 
personality in practice. It involves knowledge of tempera- 
ment, mastery over the animal nature; the conservation of 
values, in contrast with ‘‘dissipation’”’ or vice. It is the 
basis of moral efficiency. As conceived nowadays it is 
plainly not asceticism, not mere self-discipline, although 
it involves power to face and overcome the disagreeable. 
In another aspect it implies calmness, inner peace, equanim- 
ity : ‘fin confidence and equanimity shall be your strength.”’ 
Thus it is implied in the typical Stoic virtue of serenity 
amidst rational adjustment to the cosmos.® 

Temperance.—The values of prudence and self-control, 
so far as they are moral, pertain especially to the cardinal 
virtue known as temperance or self-discipline. Essential 
to this initial virtue is knowledge of the impulses, desires, 
passions, coarser emotions, refining emotions—the condi- 
tions under which they rise into prominence—as tendencies 
to action, and knowledge of the consequences to which these 
actions lead. Self-control is not only called for, but also 


7 System of Ethics, trans., p. 481. 
8 For a discussion of bodily life and control see Paulsen, op. cit., 
p. 505. 


326 The Moral Ife 


the adoption of a worthy universe of desire which makes 
possible the curbing of unruly desires, resistance to the 
allurements of sense, not only in the obvious cases of eat- 
ing and drinking but in the desires as a whole. Temper- 
ance implies the idea of subordination of detached prompt- 
ings to action, each one of which, like desire for sensuous 
pleasure, tends by itself to run to excess; and the organi- 
zation and wiser use of all promptings classified as 
“‘lower,’’ not necessarily as ‘‘animalistic,’’ but as involv- 
ing lesser values. The end in view is individual well- 
being as essential to self-realization. For temperance is 
a means to other virtues, and is to be understood both in 
the light of what it controls and of what it contributes. 
It is not then abstinence or repression but wise use of our 
powers. The Greek maxim in this connection is, ‘‘ Nothing 
to excess,’’ implying the golden mean of Aristotle’s ethics. 
Much then will depend on temperament, for some people 
are naturally too emotional, others impulsive, cold, arbi- 
trary, exacting, or of the single-tracked type. We learn 
temperance experimentally, profiting by the lessons of 
excess, by pain, and over-indulgence. Some points in its 
favor are obvious, but if nothing to excess is to be the rule, 
much testing is required. The moderation which is essen- 
tial to health is part of the art of life, so is the moderation 
which we come to approve of by noting instances of ex- 
treme self-sacrifice. 

Seth interprets temperance to mean the reign of reason, 
and the subjection and obedience of sensibility: character 
is nature disciplined.® But this mastery of natural impulse 
by reason will call forth varied criticisms on the part of 
those who, strong in their sensibilities, maintain that all 
our promptings to do good spring from impulse. The 
larger meaning which Seth has in view is, utilization of 
the dynamic which our impulses yield, conversion of ir- 
rational into rational energy, the transmutation of impulse 
into character. Intemperance is disintegration, and im- 
plies unorganized sensibility. The element of subjection 
of all impulse to higher rule is the negative aspect only; 

9 Hthical Principles, p. 241. 


The Virtues 327 


coordination or control is the positive, that is, unity of 
purpose. So too in Paulsen’s account the power to resist 
temptation is a pre-condition, not the larger meaning of 
temperance.’ Efficient action in line with the ideal is 
the goal. Temperance is whole-mindedness. At times it 
ealls for negative self-control, restraint, inhibition; but, 
again, it involves reverence, recognition of the unique, or 
invaluable worth embodied in any situation or act of life, 
involving control of excitement and the guidance of a 
superior interest.11 Green discloses its essence by compar- 
ing this eardinal Greek virtue with the Christian virtue 
of self-denial.1? There is a unity of principle, but a dif- 
ference of range or comprehension. The fundamental con- 
viction implied in this virtue is that there is a lower and 
a higher. In the end it is a question of the fuller capacities 
of the self. These are larger in the Christian view. They 
involve a wider activity in the work of perfecting man- 
kind.+% 

Courage.—Self-control in another form implies courage, 
coordination of powers so that one may rise above diffi- 
culties, persevere, overcome what appears to be the in- 
superable. Here too there is a negative aspect and a posi- 
tive, the checking of conflicting desires and emotions, the 
desire to escape, the emotion of fear, resistance of the 
fear of pain; but also the vigorous throwing of one’s self 
into action to ‘‘carry on.’’ The term fortitude covers 
the first aspect, while bravery is a synonym for martial 
courage. Sometimes it is a question of putting aside per- 
sonal comfort and safety, the immediate good; again, there 
is a plunging in where all seems uncertain, where the pres- 
ent is ominous, and the future no less so. One’s conclu- 
sion regarding the worth of self-sacrifice will enter into 
this ‘‘leap in the dark.’’ Something too will depend on 
one’s view of loyalty, devotion to duty other than through 
patriotism, love for people, fidelity to principle.1* Moral 

10 Ibid., p. 485. 11 Dewey and Tufts, Ethics, p. 406. 

12 Prolegomena to Ethics, 3d ed., p. 281. 

13 Ibid., p. 299. 


14 Wright distinguishes courage as physical economic, and moral, 
Self-Realization, p. 341, foll. 


328 The Moral Life 


courage in the popular sense has varied meanings which 
change with our estimates of things worth doing. The 
martial courage which has been praised and sung for 
centuries is falling into disrepute with changed views con- 
cerning war. | 

Manliness.—To take standards of manliness into ac- 
count as clues to courage is to note that in a mythical 
period the ideal was centered in the hero, in a Hercules 
or Samson, representative of physical strength. Later, 
eame the knight of the Middle Ages, in America the hero 
who went out West to kill Indians; while more recently 
the hero was one who had the hardihood to venture forth 
into No Man’s Land at night, the sailor lashed in position 
aboard a destroyer in quest of German submarines, the 
aviator in the scout or bombing-plane, or the one who 
transported the mail at night in the transcontinental air- 
mail service. Manliness has also been more or less identi- 
fied with habits of smoking, drinking, and swearing, with 
the idea of ‘‘being a sport,’’? whatever that might mean, 
and possibly it meant that a man was supposed to sow his 
wild oats in youth. But the moral idealist has long dis- 
tinguished between use of brute strength as evidence of 
physical courage, and deeds of daring involving real de- 
votion to duty as in war-time, or wherever the danger was 
great. It takes no courage to follow the crowd, uncritically 
adopting external standards, degrading one’s self on the 
vain assumption that to be a true sport is to indulge in 
compromises. Courage enters when one refuses to adopt 
vice of any sort at any time, however strongly one may 
be urged. True manliness consists in faithfulness to a 
standard, in business or society, war or peace. It in- 
creases with victory over enticement in all its subtle forms, 
by triumph over temptation which the multitude would 
not regard as temptation ; with strength to do what is right, 
to speak and act according to conviction. In the world of 
trade it involves the square deal, in society adaptation to 
conventions without compromise in favor of pleasure- 
seekers who appeal to a person to yield ‘‘just this once.’’ 
Sometimes it means readiness to apologize, or to do any- 


The Virtues 329 


thing difficult, where fidelity to an ideal means ‘‘standing 
up to a thing,’’ facing it with open eye. Gradually our 
standards have changed from the martial virtues to the 
gentler virtues, although we have often failed to note mod- 
ern equivalents for manliness. True manliness goes with 
courtesy, kindness; the true gentleman refuses to adopt 
two standards to govern his speech and conduct—one in the 
company of women, the other in the company of men. 
Hence the clue is onee more found in self-consistency. 

Endurance.—Courage is also known as perseverance or 
endurance, the power to accept and steadily to meet ad- 
verse conditions attendant upon difficult enterprises. En- 
durance implies meeting pain with calmness of self-con- 
trol or constancy of spirit. Persistence is courage in push- 
ing through routine, the less agreeable phases of life and 
work encountered on the way to suecess. It involves con- 
centration on the goal, pushing through intertias, adapta- 
tion to the natural rhythms of work, the alternation be- 
tween work and rest, the relation of pauses to the second 
wind. Where martial courage was once the ideal, endur- 
ance of the conditions of labor is often the modern ex- 
pression. The enterprise of the pioneer in meeting hard- 
ships, of the explorer in facing the difficulties of a voyage 
toward the Poles, is also a typical instance. In the endur- 
ance of pain woman may surpass man, as in submissive- 
ness, and patience. 

Independence.—Courage is frequently signalized as 
‘‘moral’’? when independence of thought is implied, in the 
ease of liberality in religion, constancy in the pursuit of 
truth despite opposition, or any venture where higher self- 
assertion is called for. Fidelity to principle in an unpop- 
ular cause, superiority to adverse criticism when doing 
one’s duty, standing by an ideal when subject to condem- 
nation, composure under attack and persecution—all these 
are regarded as matters to be rejoiced over in behalf of 
true individualism. There are degrees of such allegiance 
in religious matters: when one espouses an ideal as appli- 
cable to all situations in life, then passes from loyalty to 
ereed or institution to loyalty to Christ, the Church In- 


330 The Moral Infe 


visible, to purity of faith in God. To stand by conviction 
to the end, even to become known as a conscientious objec- 
tor, is to find that there is increasing need of courage, 
inner power ito resist all inducements and arguments. By 
moral courage in the more distinctive sense is meant cour- 
age which does not depend on physical strength or out- 
ward appeal. From such courage follow ardent consist- 
ency, exceptional veracity, and utter sincerity. 
Patience.—Patience is usually thought of as ability to 
meet hardship or bear pain without being overcome and 
without showing signs of annoyance. But patience is called 
for in meeting details and routine, in adjustment to people 
of varied types, particularly those who are stupid, inert, 
excitable, overbearing; those who have ‘‘moods’’ and are 
‘‘difficult.’’ Patience in waiting is no less typical, also 
in meeting complaints, in adaptation to varied conditions 
of travel, in facing losses, meeting defeats, in disappoint- 
ments. Such patience grows with increase of serenity, with 
refinement and beauty of spirit. Patience in general has 
been called ‘‘feminine courage,’’+° as if seldom found in 
man, who, because of his more vigorous self-assertion in 
the world, is unwilling to endure adversities with quietude. 
Endurance in meeting pain is to be distinguished however 
from patience as a manifestation of wisdom and composure. 
Man does not necessarily rouse up in vigorous defense and 
attack. Some men practice the higher resistance. Stoic 
composure in meeting the vicissitudes of life is as much 
needed by man as by woman. The Greek Stoics contrib- 
uted the wise man’s ideal as one of the great classic types. 
Woman’s composure is described by Paulsen as ‘‘active 
patience . . . the elastic resistance of the soul . . . one 
of the most beautiful and valuable qualities of woman. 
It is harder for a man to get up again after he has met 
with misfortunes. A woman generally finds less difficulty 
in beginning anew; she soon begins to hope and fear again, 
to work and strive; she has a more flexible nature. Man’s 
strength is more unbending and brittle. A woman is also 
better able to battle with long-continued troubles and ob- 


15 See, for example, Paulsen, op. cit., p. 499. 


The Virtues 331 


stacles; when the man impatiently sinks beneath the load, 
she retains her equanimity and even her cheerfulness. For 
that reason woman is the born guardian of youth, the 
nurse of the sick, and the counsellor of old age.’’ 1° 

Wisdom.—In Plato’s sense of the term, wisdom accom- 
panies the attainment of philosophic knowledge, harmoni- 
ous and controlled activity, codrdination of the elements 
of the soul, as essential to uprightness or justice. Wis- 
dom in the individual corresponds to the governing class 
in the state. In the inner life it includes prudence, which 
is, we have seen, for the most part a virtue. It includes 
order, balance, a scale of worths or values. The morally 
efficient person sees the superiority of rationalism over ma- 
terialism, and adopts the most efficient means to the end. 
Wisdom is acquired by experience, involves volition as an 
organizing agency directed by thought (reason, enlighten- 
ment). Through wisdom one assigns both perplexing and 
spontaneous promptings to their proper places. Only 
through wisdom ean one realize the Greek maxim, ‘‘noth- 
ing to excess.’’ It is not a simple matter to decide what 
promptings are eligible, how to preserve spontaneity, yet 
have sufficient system. Through wisdom one gives heed 
more and more to ends to be attained, with less thought of 
origins. The modern term for wisdom is ‘‘conscientious- 
ness. ”’ 

Self-culture—The subject of self-culture has a whole 
literature of its own involving self-knowledge, develop- 
ment, expression, according to the point of view of the 
moral teacher. The basis is found in the principle that 
true good is inner excellence, as characterized by the 
Greeks; or in the kingdom ‘‘within,”’ the realities and veri- 
ties of the spirit, in Christianity. The esthetic element 
in religious terms is ‘‘the beauty of holiness,’’ in contrast 
with the superficial attainments of the esthete. In Greek 
terms, the rational (ideal) self is the self to be cultivated 
to the full; in Christian terms, the losing or denial of the 
lesser self in the greater involves different points of em- 
phasis. Self-culture also calls for preservation of spon- 


16 Ibid., p. 499. 


332 The Moral Lfe 


taneity, lest there be too much self-restraint. It is out of 
the question to understand and develop to the full one’s 
truer nature without realizing that it is social, that its 
expression is for the benefit of others. 

Culture in this larger sense has been called ‘‘the perfect 
development of the spiritual life,’’ 1” also the symmetrical 
development of our several capacities.1* There would then 
be no atrophy of the emotional nature, or incapacity for 
practical activity. True intellectual culture is impossible 
without culture of will and emotion. Culture ealls for 
knowledge of both the poetry and the prose of life, quest 
for the truth, the use of constructive or creative imagina- 
tion, assimilation of the values of training in the arts and 
sciences. The Greek ideal was that of the beautiful soul 
in the beautiful body. Physical culture is then both a 
means and an end as expressive of value.*® Intellectual 
culture is not to be separated as an end, as if the intellect 
were a thing apart, but is to be regarded as instrumental, 
as an aid to wise volition, and desirable expression of the 
emotions. Intellectual knowledge is a leading clue to vir- 
tue, but it is the life of the spirit as a whole which fosters 
culture. We distinguish ‘‘mere’’ knowledge or intellect 
from ‘‘wisdom’’ taught by experience. True individuality 
involves diversity in unity, is to be conserved in person- 
ality. Hence we guard against narrowness, over-speciali- 
zation, a too minute division of intellectual labor. The in- 
dividual may specialize in his culture, become efficient, 
practical enough to learn a good living; and yet acquire 
breadth of view, seek insight in varied directions, retain 
both partisanship and disinterestedness in different connec- 
tions. In developing the technique of culture, one may 
avoid over-precision as one would guard against intellectual 
pride, vanity, self-conceit. 

All self-culture is not necessarily moral. Intellectual 
and esthetic culture may often fall short. Ethics comes 
as the corrective of our educational systems, to show what 

17 Paulsen, op. cit., p. 543. 


18 Seth, op. cit., p. 249. 
19 Cf. Seth, tbid., p. 250. 


The Virtues 333 


true self-realization is. We once more note the intimate 
relationship of egoism and altruism. Self-culture in the 
deeper sense eventuates in altruism by avoiding the ex- 
cesses above indicated.”° 

The Christian View.—The Christian ideal of our own 
time is likely to appeal to us as coming not to destroy but 
to recognize and fulfill the Greek ideal of self-culture. 
The Greek ideal did not fail on its individualistic side. It 
ealled for the modern conception of the more social de- 
velopment of culture. Greek culture did not necessarily 
involve social service as we understand it. Stoic self- 
control did not necessarily mean recognition of the brother- 
hood of man. Yet the ethical ideals of Plato and Aristotle 
involved social application in the state in a way which we 
have hardly attained as yet, and the Stoic ideal actually 
called for true citizenship in the world. Return to the 
Greek ideal in contrast with the Christian is not likely 
to be understood (since the World War) as reaction against 
the gentler virtues of Christianity, disparaged by Nietzsche. 
We have seen what the culture of the Teutonic peoples 
leads to, in its exaltation of the ‘‘super-man.’’ We have 
also been shown the limitations of the type of moral theory 
which seeks support in the materialistic interpretation of 
evolution, as the struggle of those who organize brute- 
force to the limit. The judgment of many moral teachers, 
since the war, is that the gentler virtues have never been 
given fair and full trial. The influence of the martial 
standard has been too strong. It remains for the world 
to reconsider peace, the higher resistance, humility, gentle- 
ness, kindness, forgiveness, charity, love as tests of true 
self-culture seeking more complete social expression. The 
true super-man is not a god of physical foree. The indi- 
vidual virtues are essentials of the social virtues. Tem- 
perance, courage, wisdom as we have interpreted them 
above prepare the way for justice, service, brotherhood. 


20 On the limitations of idealism, see Seth, op. cit., p. 256; Paulsen, 
op. cit., p. 565. 


334 The Moral Infe 


REFERENCES 


Mackenzig, J. S., A Manual of Ethics, 4th ed., 1901, Bk. III, 
Chap. IV. 

MurrHeEaD, J. H., The Elements of Ethics, 1892, Bk. V, Chap. I. 

Dewey AND Turts, Ethics, 1906, Chap. XIX. 

RASHDALL, H., The Theory of Good and Evil, 1907, Vol. I, 
Chap. VII. 

PauLsen, F., System of Ethics, tr. by. F. Thilly, 1899, Bk. ITI, 

I-III, V, VI. 

Wrieut, H. W., Self-realization, 1913, Part V. 

Seru, J., A Study of Ethical Principles, 6th ed., 1902, Part I, 
Chap. I. 

Gizycx1, G., An Introduction to the Study of Ethics, adapted by 
S. Coit, 1891, Chap. V. 

GREEN, T. H., Prolegomena to Ethics, 5th ed., 1906, Bk. III, 
Chap. V. 

Rocsrs, A. K., The Theory of Ethics, 1922, Chap. VIII. 

Sturt, H., Human Value, 1923, Chap. III. 


CHAPTER XXI 
THE SOCIAL VIRTUES 


Sources of Social Virtue.—Our study of virtue passes 
from the individual to the more explicitly social virtues, 
with recognition of the fact that man as a social being is 
prompted by sympathetic impulses and emotions, manifests 
pity, altruistic sentiments of various kinds side by side 
with promptings making for self-culture not explicitly due 
to an altruistic motive. The content of social virtue is 
found in the social life prevailing at the time, tested by 
standards on the part of moral leaders, or wrought into 
ethical systems, as in the systems of Plato and Aristotle. 
This content varies greatly as moral change goes on from 
age to age, and in various lands. Certain of the greater 
virtues persist as ideal types, although the lst of the car- 
dinal virtues is not everywhere the same. Thus for Con- 
fucius the list included humanity (universal sympathy), 
justice, conformity, rectitude, and sincerity. 

Justice.—In Plato’s ethical system justice occupies the 
highest place, as the culmination of the virtues—temper- 
ance, courage, and wisdom—which stand in need of a co- 
Ordinating principle. The individual virtues eall for bal- 
ance, order, self-control in the inner life of the person, 
whose talents enable him to do his best; these virtues an- 
ticipate the more social virtue, which is in essence virtue 
itself in human life as a whole. Virtue would indeed be 
self-regarding without justice as the enriching quality 
which discloses goodness in its true estate. 

The original prompting toward virtue is due to the 
quickening of love, as we have seen in another chapter, 
not alone for the Beautiful and the True, but for the 
Good; not for friendship or completeness through ideal 
interchange between individuals and small groups alone, 

335 


336 The Moral Infe 


but in the state as the realization of social virtue in its 
highest form. Whatever may be said concerning the de- 
tails and methods of Plato’s ideal state, his conception of 
justice as the crowning virtue is the productive principle 
of his idealism. This is not to be justice attained by sheer 
democracy or assumed equalities of capacity, character, 
and class-relationships; but justice according to wisdom, 
the rule of the best. 

Aristotle’s View.—Aristotle, starting with the nature 
of man as social, adds to the Platonic virtues of the indi- 
vidual such virtues as liberality, magnificence, highminded- 
ness. The test, as in courage and temperance, is the mean 
between extremes of couduct in each case. Gentleness, 
friendliness, and truthfulness also find places in his en- 
riched conception. Justice is the moral state which enables 
a man not only to intend but actually to do what is right 
or just; it is complete virtue in relation to one’s neighbors, 
the one virtue which unqualifiedly seeks the good of others. 
Justice, thus defined, is not then a part of virtue but the 
whole; and the discussion of the larger relations of justice 
includes matters pertaining to politics, law, and the state 
in its ethical completeness. Aristotle significantly remarks 
that justice is difficult of attainment, as it consists not in 
actions alone but in a moral state. 

Justice involves, for example, being faithful to the laws 
of the land, as well as in being fair in all one’s dealings: 
the law-abiding person is just, and laws pronounce upon 
all subjects for the good of the community. He who is 
unjust is not only unfair but is neglectful of equality, in- 
dulges in excess or defect. Justice then is proportionate, 
and just conduct is a mean between committing and suf- 
fering injustice: to commit injustice is to have too much, 
to suffer it is to have too little. In actual social groups 
in various lands the conceptions of justice vary according 
to what is conventional, but there is everywhere ‘‘one 
naturally perfect polity.”?1 Meanwhile it is, of course, 
impossible to pronounce upon human action with complete 
accuracy. 


1 Ethics, Bk. V, Chap. X. 


The Social Virtues 337 


The Scope of Justice.—If, with Plato, we hold that the 
realization of justice calls for the ideal state, we are con- 
cerned with the total situation as outlined in the Republic, 
with the program of Aristotle’s Hthics as a whole, and his 
inquiries into existing states and constitutions. It is first 
a question of the moral order of powers within the indi- 
vidual, their full development and greatest use; and of the 
complete carrying out of the same ethical principles in 
every sphere of social activity, in education, the arts, the 
quest for truth, in ideas pertaining to the gods, and in 
political life in its highest sense. Justice in this scheme 
of the virtues occupies the place corresponding to right- 
eousness in the Christian plan. 

It has been remarked that failure to include justice is 
the greatest omission of early Christianity, but this criti- 
cism is no doubt due to failure to consider in what respects 
**jJustice’’ and ‘‘righteousness’’ are equivalent terms. The 
original differences were partly matters of application. 
The Greek ideal in general looked forward to the estab- 
lishment of a bettered state on earth, while the Christian’s 
interest centered for ages about salvation and the kingdom 
of heaven. To consider justice as the ideal for an earthly 
state is to inquire into inequality, poverty, oppression, the 
reasons for slavery, and all other conditions which impede 
the realization of the ideal. The struggle for justice has 
become the more intense with increase of conditions unfav- 
orable to it. Hence, attention has been given more and 
more to social salvation here and now, rather than to in- 
dividual salvation in the future life. The social virtues 
ealled for on earth spring from the needs and wants of 
people under given conditions, favorable and unfavorable. 
Thus justice is in a way negative. Seth suggests that 
justice be regarded as social virtue on its negative side, 
with its corresponding duty of freedom and equality; 
while on its positive side the virtue is benevolence, and 
the implied duty fraternity or brotherliness. ‘‘When- 
ever I do not repress another personality, but allow it room 
to develop, I am just to [that personality] . . . whenever 
I help another in the fulfillment of his moral task, I 


338 The Moral Infe 


exercise towards him the virtue of benevolence.’’? Jus- 
tice then as a relation between moral beings implies 
recognition of the alter ego in one’s fellowman, whom 
we should love as we do ourselves. Each man counts 
for one. In Kant’s terms, each man is an end in a king- 
dom of ends. Justice involves consideration of all the 
rights of man—life, freedom, property, the protection pro- 
vided by law—although ‘‘rights’’ taken collectively are 
not the same as justice as the organizing principle. Ethi- 
cally speaking, we are first of all concerned with justice 
as a cardinal virtue, not with such problems as a just law 
and its execution, a righteous government, or the admin- 
istration of justice among the nations. Even in this re- 
stricted sense it is difficult to define the meaning of 
justice without putting the term in relation to such mat- 
ters as equality, reciprocity, mutuality, service, fraternity ; 
since it is essentially a question of righteousness in fullness 
of expression. 

If we say that justice consists in granting to every man 
an autonomous control over his active powers, with the 
understanding that he shall not interfere with the same 
rights and privileges granted to other men,? it then be- 
comes a question of the divergent conceptions of rights and 
privileges. Hence the real problem of justice is that of 
reconciling the conflicting demands of individuals, and 
eventually the demands of states and nations, finally of 
the nations constituting the complete world-group. 

Kquality.—History shows that in the movement towards 
justice very much depends on the prevailing views of 
equality. Where the belief in natural inequality is a 
dogma, as in India, where the Brahmanie ethics is a mat- 
ter of social grades, castes or classes, the development of 
moral conceptions will be remote from genuine equality 
and brotherhood as regarded in other lands.* The result 
in India was a different moral code for each caste. In 
other nations, radical views concerning liberty, equality, 


2 Op. cit., p. 273. 
3 Rogers, op. cit., p. 170. 
4 Myers, op. cit., p. 98. 


The Social Virtues 339 


and fraternity have brought about great social upheavals 
in the endeavor after justice. 

Although the implied conception of equality is essential 
to the conception of justice prevailing, equality has proved 
to be an extremely difficult term to define. In general it 
might be agreed that each man is to count as one; since 
human life is sacred, and every man should enjoy certain 
privileges of existence, food, shelter, protection, the right 
to enjoy fruits of his toil. ‘‘To each according to his need, 
from each according to his ability’’ would seem then to be 
the underlying principle. Justice might accordingly be 
defined as the realization of moral obligation with respect 
to such equality. A man ought then to regard the good 
of any other man as of equal intrinsic value with the good 
of any one else. Equal distribution of the good seems 
to be what is called for; and social justice is the principle 
on which the good is to be distributed, that is, with impar- 
tial treatment of the individual, due regard for the indi- 
vidual’s needs and claims.® 

Our study of conceptions of the good has shown the 
difficulty of any quantitative standard, for example, in the 
effort to define the good as pleasure or happiness, to de- 
velop a calculus of pleasures, and maintain, with Bentham, 
that it is question of the greatest happiness of the great- 
est number: ‘‘everybody to count for one and nobody for 
more than one.’’ Insuperable difficulties have been en- 
countered by those who have proposed equal distribution 
of money or other material wealth, equal distribution of 
the rewards of labor on the basis of manual labor as the 
test, or any leveling scheme; for moral matters are ques- 
tions of quality, individuality, differences in type, kinds 
of service, diversity of needs. The ‘‘equality of oppor- 
tunity’’ demanded by those who have set up a socialistic 
standard, founded on a materialistic interpretation of his- 
tory, has turned out to be opportunity to enjoy the results 
of material success, with almost entire neglect of the inner 
life. 


5 Cf. Rashdall, op. cit., Vol. I, p. 185. 


340 The Moral Life 


Natural Equality —It was once readily assumed that 
‘‘all men are born free and equal,’’ that is, substantially 
and potentially equal, physically and mentally. As matter 
of fact, men are born markedly unequal, in ancestry, 
parentage, hereditary equipment in all its phases; in en- 
vironmental conditions, and the opportunities which suc- 
cessive social situations afford; and all their life is spent 
in inequality. The point of view has so changed since 
social differences were inquired into that inequality has 
been called ‘‘nature’s inexorable law.’’ For neither in 
living nor in dying is there equality. ‘‘The infinite variety 
of nature’’ is, however, the truer phrase. The law of 
variation is not the same as a law of inequality. The idea 
of inequality was not suggested by nature but by study of 
human society. Psychology has been forcing home the 
fact of native inequalities by pointing to individual differ- 
ences in sense-types,’ and more recently by the application 
of intelligence tests to bring out the native differences in 
intelligence. The significant fact is that no two men are 
precisely equal in capacity or intelligence, and that the 
native equipment has so wide a range that mental differ- 
ences rather than supposed identities are the direct clues: 
differences in equipment mean differences in selecting oc- 
cupations all along the line, differences in efficiency, pro- 
duction, execution, choice of opportunities, selection of 
mates, response to environment, and adoption of types of 
belief. We are scarcely born equal in helplessness, inno- 
cence, or even in ignorance. 

Spiritual Equality.—It is said indeed that we are equal 
before God, who is ‘‘no respecter of persons,’’ whose mercy 
falls upon all without partiality. But this equality in the 
divine presence has been interpreted to mean ‘‘equality of 
consideration,’’ and the matters to be brought before the 
divine tribunal would differ with the individual. ‘‘Com- 
mon fellowship with Christ’’ is another way of stating the 
possibility of spiritual union in which all shall count as 
one. In this sense we are ideally ‘‘members one of an- 


6 Cf. I. W. Howerth, The Scientific Monthly, Nov., 1924. 
7See H. C. Warren, Elements of Human Psychology, 1922, p. 373. 


The Social Virtues 341 


other,’’ and the ideal of ‘‘the beloved community’’ is the 
perfect type of brotherhood. By contrast we are reminded 
that while ‘‘equality before the law’’ is a widely-recognized 
principle, in practice it is difficult to secure equal con- 
sideration. Equality of political rights has not readily 
followed from the affirmation that we are equal before 
God and in the eyes of the law. Man does not find himself 
counting as one only, in the economic world. Even in 
communistic schemes designed to secure justice, the idea 
of equality has usually been approached from the point 
of view of earthly needs, not with reference to heaven. 
Capitalism as a materialistic scheme has been opposed by 
another materialistic scheme, not to secure justice in terms 
of equality but by the abolition of rights which are said 
to have been greedily grasped by promoters of the great 
industries of the world. The ery, ‘‘Liberty, Freedom, and 
Equality,’’ signified, ‘‘Down with oppression.’’ The quest 
has been for a corrective of natural or unmerited inequali- 
ties, not for realization of spiritual equality on earth. It 
has seemed impossible to win what has been ealled equality, 
that is, freedom for working classes, by equal distribution 
of goods which have different values for different persons 
at various times. Meanwhile there has been persistent 
ignoring of the fact that value is the moral consideration, 
hence a neglect of the one direction in which to look for 
hope. Inequality has often been socially beneficial, but 
this seems to be an unpleasant fact. The obvious thing, 
granted spiritual equality as the only sort of equality we 
may take for granted, would be to inquire into individual 
capacities and endeavor to attain perfect adjustment be- 
tween fitness and vocation on an ethical basis. 
Proportionality.— Willoughby has suggested that we 
should turn from the notion of equality to proportionality, 
or reward according to labor wrought. This brings us in 
sight of the ethical goal, namely, the ideal of moral worth 
in any occupation with reference not merely to external 
standards but to effort put forth, the changes brought about 
in character, the goals won through constancy of purpose 
in meeting the adverse conditions of labor. For work 


342 The Moral Life 


differs in quality more than in quantity. It is a question 
of the type of work, the thought and effort required, the 
kind of skill, and of many other matters which have never 
been successfully measured by any standard of manual 
efficiency, time-schedules, or any scheme of work adopted 
by labor unions to regulate quality by quantity. Moral 
rewards are not assigned by any leveling scheme. Merit 
does not depend upon the number of hours or on any 
purely external test. The man who understands life’s sit- 
uation from a moral point of view expects consequences 
rather than rewards, that is, fruits of character, earned 
results, deserved reactions; he does not expect a reward 
for duty, as rewards are understood in the world, al- 
though he may be pleased to receive recognition. Thus a 
man would reasonably expect a material reward which 
bears relation to moral effort, a reward for his labors in 
proportion to his native ability, skill, the difficulties and 
intensities involved. There appears to be no common meas- 
ure applicable all along the line, and even the idea of pro- 
portionality would fall short at some point. But where 
obscurity or complexity meets us when we regard the 
problem of labor externally, clear light is discoverable 
within. If ‘‘every individual is under moral obligation 
to employ his talents to their full extent for the benefit of 
humanity,’’ as Willoughby maintains,’ the moral principle 
is the starting-point ; and we have every reason for antici- 
pating failure only, when material or quantitative stand- 
ards are applied as if they embraced all factors. 
Opportunity.—By ‘‘equality of opportunity’’ we might 
then rightfully mean freedom to know our type and de- 
velop into adequate self-expression. Opportunity is a 
moral consideration. Man approaches it equipped by 
heredity, good or bad; helped or hindered by environment ; 
defeated, encouraged, or benefited by education or train- 
ing according to his knowledge, the use made of native 
abilities, the effort put forth; and according to his powers 
of selection, influenced by his prevailing beliefs, for ex- 
ample, the acceptance of a materialistic interpretation of 
8 W. W. Willoughby, Social Justice, 1900, p. 197. 


The Socal Virtues 343 


history. The proposition, ‘‘to each according to his needs,’’ 
would therefore, cover a wide range. ‘‘T'o each according 
to his ability’? would involve other knowledge of native 
abilities than even the latest psychological methods of meas- 
urement have been able to disclose. A man may ‘‘need’’ 
a loaf of bread, or may need to learn the fact and mean- 
ing of inequality in the social order. It has been remarked 
that the most loudly voiced wants are not always the most 
urgent needs. The right to subsistence is granted to those 
who will work. In any situation we expect a man to 
‘‘know his opportunity.’’ Man is neither primarily a unit 
among equal units, a manual laborer, an economic agent, 
or a soldier in the vocational world; he is a moral being, 
ealled upon to face the situation as it is, however many 
unsolved problems of social justice there may be. 
Equality and Justice——An initial difficulty in seeking 
knowledge of justice is due then to conflict between two 
standards, as stated by Rashdall: (1) the idea that every 
human being is of equal intrinsic value, and is therefore 
entitled to respect; and (2) the conviction that the good 
ought to be preferred to the bad, that is, that men ought 
to be rewarded according to their goodness or according to 
their work.® The first conception implies equality, the 
second just recompense. Bentham’s doctrine concerning 
the distribution of happiness exemplifies the first of these 
standards, and the objection is that an equal distribution 
of good diminishes the amount of good to be distributed. 
There is no concrete tangible thing, or even specific liberty 
of action or acquisition to which every individual has a 
right under all circumstances. No right of man is un- 
conditional save the right to consideration. If it were a 
question of equality of opportunity every state would need 
to supply the child with an equally good mother, and equal 
educational opportunities for the dunce and the genius. 
But if liberty of action actually implies inequality, if some 
inequality is a condition of well-being, the maxim should 


® Op. cit., p. 223. 
10 Ibtd., p. 227, 


344 The Moral Life 


be: ‘‘Every man’s good to count as equal to the like good 
of every other man.’’ }4 

It is then just recompense, not equality that people seek: 
to every man according to his merit, to every man accord- 
ing to his work. If this principle is interpreted from an 
economic point of view the problem arises; How shall the 
quality or amount be determined? But if the value of 
persons iS understood to be the test, then, indeed justice 
prescribes that ‘‘we should aim at bestowing equal good 
on equal capacity,’’ and some sacrifice of the individual to 
the whole will be prescribed by the just claims of the ma- 
jority.?? 

The Self-determining Individual—Leighton expresses 
the ideal end of justice, as it has been clarified through the 
historical process, as follows: ‘‘the progressive discovery 
and recognition of the right of every normal human being 
to be treated as a self-determining indiwidual, as a rational 
self, free and responsible. . . . Thus the dynamic principle 
in the evolution of the concept of justice is the emergence 
and universalization of the ideal of moral personality. The 
development of the idea of legal responsibility, as depend- 
ent upon choice or moral responsibility, and of equality 
before the law, and the doctrine of the inalienable rights 
of man, are all expressions of this central principle.’’ 1% 
The advance in recognizing individual liberty keeps step 
with the ideas of justice. Liberty is definable as ‘‘the 
sphere or scope of the exercise of individual freedom, of 
self-direction in society, in so far as such exercise is com- 
patible with the exercise of a like freedom on the part of 
all the other members of society.’’ One limitation has been 
removed after another. The modern industrial system still 
greatly hinders man in the exercise of economic self-de- 
termination or freedom, and man’s spiritual liberty is 
also greatly hampered by*economiec serfdom. The demand 
today for fuller opportunity indicates the trend toward 
a fuller measure of economic liberty to be gained in the 

11 [bid., p. 240; see summary, p. 241. 


12 Tbid., p. 268. 
13 The Field of Philosophy, p. 508. 


The Social Virtues 345 


future. A fair opportunity ‘‘to become and live as a full 
and free moral agent is the logical sequence of justice and 
liberty.’’?4 Opportunity, ethically speaking, does not then 
mean absolute economic equality, but so much opportunity 
as a man can use. We have yet to attain a constant re- 
lation between the economic status into which a man is 
born and his congenital abilities. ‘‘Social progress will 
depend chiefly on the degree in which the economic life 
of society is so ordered that the individual shall have full 
opportunity to develop and exercise his native abilities. 
To say that such is the ease now is to be false to the facts. 
Here is the heart of the social problem. Social institu- 
tions should be organized so as to remove, as far as pos- 
sible, hindrances to the development of personality due to 
economic handicaps, thus leaving free play to the natural 
and uncontrollable souree of individuality and inequality, 
the reproductwe process, which is a re-creative proc- 
ess.’’ 4 

Good Fortune.—From the moral point of view a man 
can not fall back on the easy-going assumption that some 
are lucky, fortunate in birth, surroundings, and oppor- 
tunities; while others, born into adverse conditions, have 
no chance, as if this assumption covered the whole ground. 
For there is always the factor of consciousness, of the use 
made of opportunities, favorable or unfavorable, as well 
as the factor of intelligence or native capacity. The un- 
critical assumption is that some are ‘‘under the law,’’ what- 
ever that phrase may mean; while others are born ‘‘free.’’ 
The unfortunate in the slums are no more ‘‘under the 
law’’ than any one else. Injustice is a social condition, 
not a cosmic situation, not the fault of life, of the moral 
order of the universe. As a natural being every man is 
subject to causal sequences, and is so far a precise product 
of the environmental and ancestral conditions which went 
before. Unable to ‘‘begin with our grandparents,’’ we 
start, one and all, with nature and nurture.’ The ‘‘lucky”’ 
people of the world are not those who, born amidst luxury, 


14 Ibid., p. 509. 
15 Ibid., p. 510. 


346 The Moral Life 


are ‘‘free’’ because others toil for them. Not exemption 
from work, but persistent work with a purpose carried 
through to attainment characterizes the fortunate. The 
true rationalist no longer seeks something for nothing, or 
more than he deserves and labors for. The degree of 
equality or inequality, justice or injustice depends to a 
large extent on the social group, the state of enlightenment 
and advancement, the period of history. Each man begins 
with the capital which his experience yields him, and 
Squanders or spends it according to the way he takes his 
opportunity. Each works through social conditions, fav- 
orable and unfavorable. Externally, there may appear to 
be little correspondence between what a man takes himself 
to be, wills to be, and thinks he ought to have; and what 
he finds himself possessing. But man’s true measure is 
moral, hence internal. He has rights in the inner life as 
a moral being which no external organization ever granted 
him. He ean be true to what he judges to be right, can 
accept responsibility, refrain from blaming others for what 
he did himself; he can look to himself, come to judgment, 
even though justice is not meted out in the law-courts of 
his community, and whether or not he is blamed. As a 
moral being he is less interested to have his rights vindi- 
eated through civil proceedings (distributive and corrective 
justice) than to manifest fairness, equity, impartiality, 
honesty in all his dealings; and this because for him jus- 
tice in the last analysis is uprightness or rectitude, virtue 
itself.1° 

Benevolence.—In English ethics, benevolence received 
Special recognition through emphasis on the moral senti- 
ments in contrast with reason as the guide to virtue. In- 
deed, disinterested benevolence was said to be the essence 
or basis of virtue. Hutcheson held that there is ‘‘a benevo- 
lent universal instinct.’? Butler contended however that 
benevolence is no more disinterested than other moral af- 
fections, although most of the virtues imply this love of 
the neighbor: conscience in any event is above all the 


16 Cf. Dewey and Tufts, Ethics, p. 414. 


The Social Virtues 347 


moral sentiments, encouraging man to benevolence to the 
greatest extent. Adam Smith found the basis of all the 
altruistic sentiments in sympathy. Pity or compassion is 
the emotion which we feel for the misery of others, while 
sympathy enlivens joy and alleviates grief. Generosity, 
humanity, kindness, compassion, mutual friendship, and 
esteem belong together in Smith’s conception of the social 
and benevolent affections. The test is the sympathy of 
the impartial spectator. Through sympathy one adopts 
the principle or point of view of the agent, and moves in 
spirit with the affections which influence the agent’s con- 
duct, as well as beating time to the gratitude felt for per- 
sonal benefits. Thus, eventually ‘‘we endeavor to examine 
our own conduct as we imagine any fair and impartial 
spectator would examine it.’’ 1’ 

Some have maintained that the altruistic impulse was 
originally as blind as the egoistic. It is rational insight 
into the good of another which enables the doer of good 
works to avoid ‘‘unwise kindness,’’ to discern and love the 
neighbor’s true good instead of loving and trying to serve 
him in a general way. Brotherly sympathy enables one 
to appreciate another’s task. Sympathy in active expres- 
Sion, avoiding self-sacrifice on the assumption that it is a 
good because it is a sacrifice, should seek the other’s greater 
social good, a good which is not likely to conflict with the 
good of the agent. The use of the terms ‘‘disinterested,’’ 
‘Impartial spectator,’’ on the part of moralists who em- 
phasize the sentiments, is a tacit admission that reason is 
the complementary principle. The impartial spectator 
might indeed be identified with the agent who, accepting 
Kant’s ethical principle, wills that the conduct which he 
judges acceptable shall become a universal law. So be- 
nevolence has been defined as ‘‘the promotion of the maxi- 
mum social good without reference to the question of its 
distribution.’’ 18 Plainly, benevolence is not to be identi- 
fied with either the pleasure of the agent or the happiness 
of the recipient. Pleasure may indeed be an element of 


17 The Theory of the Moral Sentiments, Part III, Chap. I, 
18 Rashdall, op. cit., Vol. I, p. 185. 


348 The Moral Infe 


the anticipation, as happiness may result from doing for 
another what is not primarily done to promote his happi- 
ness. The ‘‘considerate benevolence’’ and ‘‘reasonable 
self-love’’ once put in antithesis have come to be regarded 
as aspects of a common good.!® It is significant that the 
use of the term benevolence, and to some extent the terms 
philanthropy and charity have given place to the word 
‘“service,’’ as indicating a union of kindly motives with 
knowledge of social situations and wisdom in meeting them. 

Charity.—The Christian term charity may be taken as 
typical of terms which have come to represent various 
social virtues in the light of criticism. Charity in the 
larger sense includes (1) righteous judgment; (2) sym- 
pathy with another’s needs and point of view; (38) a 
prompting to service, aided by the best available knowledge 
or wisdom; (4) love, as the term was later used in place 
of charity, as the greatest gift. The whole field of Chris- 
tian activity is included, from the stage of the soliciting 
monk, dependent on funds and food secured by begging 
from door to door, to the high degree of organization of 
today, when one is expected to contribute to numerous 
philanthropies or community chest funds. 

Charity long ago ceased then to be almsgiving in general 
or mere liberality in relieving the wants of others, but has 
come to be regarded in the light of motive and intention, 
according to one’s view of the social order and one’s moral 
ideal. This virtue may now be said to rest more in the 
attitude or spirit than to depend on the deed. We expect 
our fellowmen to take this attitude toward us in any situ- 
ation where the frailties of human nature enter in. We 
realize that people expect righteous judgment of us. Char- 
ity is an ?deal calling for increased effort to know one 
another to the foundation and understand the conditions 
under which we live; the spirit which quickens the best in 
others, which believes the best even when appearances are 
conflicting. 

By allegiance to this standard emotions of the sympa- 


19 Green, op. cit., p. 248. 


The Social Virtues 349 


thetic type may be lifted from the level of impulse to the 
plane of deeds done for the real or lasting benefit of others. 
By charity we mean unselfishness and benevolence fostered 
or modified by wisdom. The intellectual element involves 
considerateness, the emotional includes what we call ‘‘the 
heart,’’ while the will is expressed in the endeavor ‘‘to 
do something about it,’? not to pass by on the other side. 
There is widespread agreement, so far as the attitude or 
spirit is concerned; differences come in a social group or 
institution adopting various methods of classification and 
investigation from other departments. In practice, charity 
ealls for that union of ‘‘faith’’ with ‘‘works’’ which keeps 
the human spirit alive amidst numberless tendencies toward 
erystallization. Charity in the sense of purity of heart 
may well yield the dynamic which so quickens the per- 
sonality that the one who serves never becomes a mere 
‘fagent’’ of the charities, never forgets the higher service 
which may accompany or crown the material deed. In- 
deed, charity might be defined as purity of heart or love 
in wise activity. 

The Good Life.—Charity brings love into expression, 
not alone by wishing well to the neighbor, but by making 
faith conerete so that a mutual good is established. It has 
been well said that the quality of our faith is known from 
our charity, that there is ‘‘a life of charity’’ in which the 
objects of faith and love become one. In such conduct lesser 
motives, such as pity, sympathy, mercy are transfigured, 
and need not be specified. By common consent, charity as 
an attitude atones for many a failing in lesser matters. 
When we know a man’s heart as shown in his deeds of 
mercy, we believe that we have begun to know him in very 
truth. And so in our day to “‘live the good life’’ has be- 
come a test of genuineness where all signs had become 
doubtful so far as allegiance to creed and institution were 
eoncerned. The good life in this sense is the moral life, 
and it is compatible with various forms of faith; it indi- 
cates what a man really loves and is, in contrast with what 
he is reputed to be. The world has tried other tests of 
what a man is said truly to be: it (1) has put knowledge 


350 The Moral Life 


first; (2) emphasized the bestowing of all one’s goods to 
feed the poor; (3) sought faith apart from works, salva- 
tion as an end in itself. In contrast, the only test which 
does not fall short is: wisdom quickened by love (charity). 
Prompted by charity, we never celebrate the fall of our 
adversary, but give him the benefit of the doubt; we attain 
the affirmative attitude in full, on the ground that ‘‘to 
know all is to forgive all.’’ Hence it has been said that 
when there is love, there is a way. Love in this enlightened 
sense might indeed be said to be virtue itself: righteous 
judgment in thought and attitude, and wisdom in its mani- 
festation. Hence it might also be said that man does not 
really love when ‘‘self’’ is his incentive: he exists, he strug- 
gles, trying to control events and things. What passes for 
love in the world is passion, selfishness, organized self- 
interest, fondness for power, desire to rule. These motives 
make for separateness, but love makes for conjunction, 
manifests itself so that it not only may bring love in re- 
turn but inspire love as the universal motive. 
Summary.—The social virtues imply the whole field 
of the individual’s life in relation to the social order in 
which he lives. The individual virtues prepare him, 
progressively, to find his place among the groups with 
which he is brought in contact, as he discovers his talents, 
is enlightened by social contacts, and helped to find the 
sphere in which he can become most fully productive. The 
ideal in view from a very early period is justice, and jus- 
tice is essentially social. But, as justice implies social 
virtue itself in all its fullness, what appeared to be simple 
proves highly complex; and problems relating to equality, 
freedom, fraternity, and opportunity are brought forward 
for solution. Each of these matters pertains to the eco- 
nomic situation, as surely as to the moral, and for many 
the question of economic adjustment is the central problem. 
Ethically speaking, the problem of justice centers about 
the discovery, enlightenment, and gradual freeing of the 
self-determining individual, who is in process of finding 
himself amidst conditions more or less adverse. There 
would be no social problem if every man enjoyed oppor- 


The Social Virtues . 351 


tunities essential to his complete self-expression as an or- 
ganic member of society. But imequalities of the social 
situation afford opportunity for pity, sympathy, benevo- 
lence, charity, service, love; hence for brotherhood, moral 
cooperation in realizing the ideals of the social order. The 
social virtues are not to be understood apart from either 
the environmental conditions in which they are progres- 
sively manifested or the inner conditions amidst which the 
individual gradually comes to know and to realize his true 
selfhood. Accordingly, we have still to consider other prin- 
eiples which aid us in the study of the social virtues. 


REFERENCES 


DEWEY AND TuFTs, Ethics, p. 414, foll.; Chap. XX. 

MackeNnzI£, J. S., Manual of Ethics, Bk. III, Chap. II; An 
Introduction to Social Philosophy, 1890. 

MuirHEAD, J. H., Hlements of Ethics, p. 182. 

SetH, J., Hthical Principles, Part II, Chap. II. 

Everett, W. G., Moral Values, p. 299. 

RASHDALL, H., The Theory of Good and Evil, Vol. I, Chap. VIII. 

Exiuiwoop, C. A., Christianity and Social Service, 1923, Chaps. 
EVV. 

RAUSCHENBUSCH, W., Christianizing the Social Order, 1912, Part 
II, Chap. II. 


CHAPTER XXII 
THE SPHERE OF ALTRUISM 


Giving.—It is often assumed that a prevailing motive 
in the world is the only defensible motive, namely, to be 
on the alert to secure possessions, money, position, influ- 
ence. Hence it is said that a man should put his own 
interests first, taking care not to be cheated, making sure 
that he will have a return for everything done. Then, if 
opportunity offers by the way, or later in life, one may 
indulge in philanthropy. That is to say, egoism is to be 
the real motive, whatever the plea for altruism, as estab- 
lished by ethical theory or sustained by religious convic- 
tion; and the secondary values are to be, for practical pur- 
poses, primary. To acquire, to store up, and to be pre- 
pared to defend one’s possessions, seems indeed to be the 
first law of social life. 

Meanwhile, the ideal that we should seek first to give, 
not because we have received, or measure for measure, but 
out of the treasure of the heart, with giving as the highest 
motive, in love toward God and the neighbor—this ideal 
has never been fully believed by great numbers of people. 
To give something to every man who asks, even when in giv- 
ing we practice so-called non-resistance, as if tempting a 
man to take advantage of us, would seem to be the height of 
folly. When we need more, the customary way is to de- 
mand or take more. Even when we bestow gifts, we are 
apt to qualify by tacit reference to a theory of compensa- 
tion. Since self-interest appears to be the prevalent motive, 
since no one seems to be prompted by love toward the 
neighbor, there appears to be no value even in an attempt 
to give rather than to get. 

The Mechanisms of Giving.—Yet morally speaking, as 
we have seen, individual needs are inseparable from social 

352 


The Sphere of Altruism 353 


needs; hence when one needs more, one might at least 
try the experiment of giving more. In giving there is 
power, large-mindedness. Giving rather than self-sacrifice 
is the positive idea to put over against self-interest. It is 
commonly admitted that ‘‘true self-sacrifice never knows 
itself to be sacrifice.’? I should not then make self-sacri- 
fice my conscious aim, but I may rightfully make devotion 
to the good of others by means of the best I can give my 
purpose in life. 

What one is bidden to do, instead of adopting passive 
resistance as a rule of life, is to give that which is of 
greater worth, namely, peace, forgiveness, love, even though 
one is tempted to return an eye for an eye, and a tooth 
for a tooth. Our great difficulty has been that giving is 
not organized as getting is. It lacks the mechanisms which 
are employed with such skill in the art of getting, keeping, 
insuring, guarding, and fighting for. Giving on a greater 
scale will come, not alone through general appeals to 
people to live at peace; but by understanding the psy- 
chology of giving. For it is already admitted that a man’s 
best gifts are what he gives of or from himself. The 
psycho-physical organism is already a mechanism for 
giving. 

Gifts—(1) The truest gift is made ‘‘out of the abun- 
dance of the heart,’’ because I am prompted to contribute 
from my store of possessions, such as truth, knowledge 
essential to the art of living, music, instruction, work for 
the welfare of the community. Such a gift may be ealled 
forth from me because I realize the needs of people whom 
I know. Or I may be prompted to give in general, with 
the hope that what I thus give will reach those who can best 
profit by it. There is likely to be affinity between giver 
and recipients, when I give most to individuals who most 
need the wisdom which life has taught me. When I give 
In such wise, I also receive. Giving indeed in a way 
supersedes itself and involves the values of altruism in its 
highest forms.* 


1Cf. G. H. Palmer, Altruism, Its Nature and Varieties, 1919, p. 86, 


354 The Moral Life 


(2) But giving is also by explicit adaptation to the as- 
sured needs of others who, by being benefited, will benefit 
the community. Thus I may give articles of my own pos- 
session, pleasures which I divert from myself to another, 
and opportunities for growth which I bestow even at my 
own cost.’ It is a question of gradually acquired foresight, 
knowledge of the neediest cases, the moral claims of those 
most directly related to or dependent on me; and of the 
limitations of gifts in so far as they are exceptional, ir- 
rational, and condescending.* Altruistic giving, separated 
from personal gain and established as an independent prin- 
ciple for the guidance of our conduct, is not possible. A 
strong egoistic sense is rightfully a condition of altruistic 
conduct. Higher than the intrinsic worth of the gift is 
the expression it makes of the giver’s will, his attitude, or 
‘‘heart.’’? So, once more, we turn from the lesser activity 
to the greater and find that love is the completest ground 
of giving and receiving. ‘‘Where love is there is no su- 
perior or inferior, no giver or receiver. The two make up 
a conjunct self with mutual gain.’’> 

The Ideal Neighbor.—It is commonly agreed that the 
ideal neighbor is the one who is kind, hospitable, outgoing 
in attitude, speech and manners; one who practices the 
Golden Rule. He is the Good Samaritan, the one who 
actually does the deed which others merely contemplate 
or talk about. Again, the ideal neighbor is the one who 
is considerate, unprejudiced, dispassionate; the one to 
whom we go for sympathy, advice, help in times of sick- 
ness, conference concerning the good of the community. 
You may also go to him with adverse eriticism, to free 
your system. The true neighbor is human, and regards 
you as human, whatever your beliefs, social situation, vo- 
cation, or religious creed. You may go to him to give out 
of your abundance, without thought of reward. Neighbor- 
liness is a real test of character, unselfishness, faith, free- 
dom, wisdom, love. 

2 Op. cit., p. 40. 3 Ibid., p. 41. 


4 Ibid., p. 57, foll. 
5 Ibid., p. 67. 


The Sphere of Altruism 355 


It is the universal element in you which enables you to 
be a true neighbor. So, too, you see the universal element 
in your neighbor, loving with all lovers, loving all children, 
succoring all suffering. You love your neighbor because 
of the manifestation of God in him, you are prompted to 
give because of the God in you. Hence it has been said 
that ‘‘God is the neighbor,’’ God made concrete, incar- 
nated. There is then a divine kinship, the ideal neighbor 
is the true friend; ideal neighborliness is brotherhood. To 
help another through wise charity we ask: What is the 
divine good in him? What is the best or greater good 
needed by him? This is his spiritual benefit. It may 
mean bringing him to himself. A heart-to-heart talk may 
disclose this greatest need. The neighbor may eall out 
from you the guidance he needs. Sometimes then those 
to whom we are drawn by an inner affinity are much closer 
to us than those whom we try to find by aid of a social 
organization. 

Service.—The social virtues imply in brief what we call 
in our day ‘‘service.’? The individual virtues are presup- 
posed, also a degree of special training so that one may 
fit into some organized activity and give one’s best. The 
leader in social service work may indeed be better equipped 
in economics, the principles and methods of the charities, 
than in psychology, ethics, and insight into the moral life. 
Much will depend on the emphasis, whether on external 
social conditions to be ameliorated, or on the inner life 
needing bettered expression through improved environ- 
mental conditions. Ethically speaking, the previous chap- 
ters have prepared us to see that the starting-point is the 
inter-dependence of members of society as participants in 
groups, giving and receiving, mutually contributory, with 
social self-realization as the ideal. The individuals served 
and being served are of varied capacities, unequal in 
manifold respects, relatively independent, self-determin- 
ing, yet also no less mutually dependent. The term ‘‘mu- 
tualism’’ is frequently used in this connection: ‘‘an 
economy of mutual service and mutual sacrifice on the part 
of all its members.’’® The ideal of moral association with 


6 Cf, C. A. Ellwood, Christianity and Social Service, p. 88. 


356 The Moral Life 


one another would then be ‘‘equality of service rendered.”’ 
Hence Ellwood defines social justice as ‘‘such a balance 
and equality in the services and sacrifices which the mem- 
bers of a group render to one another in order to live to- 
gether that all are benefited either in proportion to the 
service they render, or at least in proportion to their 
ability to receive.’?* This implies adjustment between 
the contributive and the possessive attitudes, such that 
giving shall take precedence over getting. The illusions 
of the ‘‘lust of possession’? must be understood at last. 
Ellwood regards ‘‘the economy of self-interest’’ or the 
possessive pattern as a pagan survival, while the contribut- 
ing attitude involves not only giving but creating. This 
accords with our conclusion that in the moral ideal there 
is always a place for the creative element. It finds an 
adequate place also for love defined as ‘‘a valuing of, and 
a devotion to, persons rather than things’’; or as ‘“‘a 
social attitude of unselfish, passionate devotion to the wel- 
fare of others.’’® 

Reciprocity.—The essence of justice has sometimes 
been regarded as reciprocity, understood to mean equable 
return. Confucius made this idea central in his formula- 
tion of the Golden Rule: ‘‘What you do not want done to 
yourself, do not do to others.’’ That is, each individual 
is to do his proper part in the relationships of daily life. 
Again, reciprocity has been taken to mean recompensing 
others for what they have done for you, with the paying 
of all one’s social debts. More profoundly, reciprocity is 
said to imply a law of compensation in human relation- 
ships in their entirety, a law of action and reaction such 
that deeds done signify the rebound of experience for ex- 
perience. The moral order is then regarded as a system 
of inter-related deeds which, by accumulation, yield results 
after their kind. ‘‘As aman soweth, so shall he also reap,’’ 
In the case of Buddhism, the accumulated deeds determine 
one’s future till these deeds have achieved their fruition 
and have given place to yet other deeds: the working out 
of one’s past deeds so that there shall be recompense is the 


7 Op. cit., p. 89. 8 [bid., pp. 116, 117. 


The Sphere of Altruism 357 


great reason for reincarnation. Justice as thus regarded 
would be a kind of mechanical adjustment in precise cor- 
respondence to deeds done. 

Compensation.—But this idea of eventual readjustment 
according to one’s character or deeds has also been held 
by peoples who do not believe in the necessity of re-birth. 
Thus Emerson refers to a justice which ‘‘executes itself,’’ 
each man receiving what he deserves by a principle which 
nothing can defeat.° The objection to this view as some- 
times understood is that it substitutes an easily assumed 
optimism for the needed investigation of social conditions. 
In fact, it ignores the problem of injustice, denies that 
injustice actually exists. 

Reciprocity would involve something more than a recom- 
pense of like reactions for like deeds, or their equivalent 
in terms of mechanical compensation. There is a higher 
motive than to act toward my neighbor as I would have him 
act in return. If I give, I am likely to receive, but not 
by a principle of mechanical adjustment. There is indeed 
what Emerson calls a law of compensation, and a man does 
indeed reap if he sows; but in the full context of Emer- 
son’s moral idealism this principle means far more than 
mechanical reciprocity.2° What Emerson teaches is that 
‘*You can not do wrong without suffering wrong. ... Men 
suffer all their life long, under the foolish superstition that 
they can be cheated. But it is as impossible for a man to 
be cheated by anyone but himself, as for a thing to be 
and not to be at the same time.’’ That is to say, ‘‘we 
are begirt by laws which execute themselves,’’ hence ‘‘none 
of us can,wrong the universe.’? The conclusion which 
follows from this teaching is adaptation to the forces of 
the moral order, with recognition of the truth that our 
own conduct is decisive; that nothing is to be won with- 
out effort; but that the moral universe is to be depended 
on to reward man according to his efforts. ‘‘Life invests 
itself with inevitable conditions which the unwise seek to 
dodge.”’ 


9 Essays, First Series. 
10 See ‘‘ Spiritual Laws,’’ ‘‘Self-reliance,’’ ‘‘The Over-soul.”’ 


358 The Moral Infe 


Participation.—It is a question then of putting the 
truth in the principle of compensation in its proper set- 
ting, without dwelling too emphatically on the mechanical 
law of cause and effect. Our study of ethical values has 
shown us that the principle of action and reaction as a 
descriptive law is not sufficient to account for the moral 
order of experiences. If it were, I might indeed serenely 
fold my hands and wait for justice to execute itself, and 
for all wrongs to right themselves. The moral principle 
is everywhere founded in the concrete deeds of daily life. 
I am called upon to meet the needs of people precisely as 
they are now conditioned. I ought, of course, to help 
them to see the compensations which life yields, sooner or 
later. But if I am a Good Samaritan, I do not impas- 
sively stand apart in sublime trust that the compensations 
will be great. I take a hand and do my part as if the 
present deed were the one great act to be done. For there 
is another principle to be put with this idea of reciprocity, 
namely, the truth that while interiorly we are open to a 
universal Life which seeks to bestow what is right upon 
all by a law of compensation, exteriorly we are conditioned 
by inequalities and maladjustments (it is through these 
that we have our experience). In other words, while my 
inner life may indeed correspond point by point with a 
universal compensating principle, my outer life is more or 
less out of correspondence. Hence, as innocent, I may 
suffer with the guilty, as zealous for truth, I may suffer 
from the mal-treatment accorded truth-lovers in this world. 

Mutuality—The term mutuality may be said to fulfill 
the higher meanings of reciprocity. Mutuality is defined 
by Palmer as ‘‘the recognition of another and myself as 
inseparable elements of one another, each being essential 
‘to the welfare of each. . . . Even Jesus did not seek simply 
to give, but to induce in those to whom he gave a similar 
disposition. Rightly is it counted higher than simple giv- 
ing, including, as it does, all which that contains and 
more.’’*+_ In partnership of the higher sort, for example, 
common interest supersedes private control. So, too, this 

11 Op. cit., p. 77. 


The Sphere of Altruism 359 


principle is realized in clubs and other organizations where 
the members also recognize themselves as members one 
of another. Commerce too may have this deep ethical 
ground, with widespread ethical opportunities, cooperation 
being as essential to it as competition.12 By mutuality in 
its highest relations is to be understood, love, as ‘‘familiar 
yet mysterious,’’ potent in developing the best that is in 
us; with both egoism and altruism given ample room, that 
is, the wish to be loved and the love which brings return.’® 
Love in the sense of mutuality then is definable as ‘‘the 
joint service of a common life.’’ 

Love as a Motive—We have already noted that the 
highest moral life follows from love rather than from a 
sense of duty. Professor Palmer calls emphatic attention 
to this fact by saying that love has ‘‘a strange aversion 
to duty. Any suspicion that we are expected to love a 
certain person alienates us from him. We can not force 
ourselves to love even when we see it to be desirable; nor 
can we expel love when we find it unreturned or unworthy. 
Love insists on freedom, a certain absence of constraint, 
either from a person, from circumstance, from collaterai ad- 
vantages, or even from our own volition. Like giving, it 
recognizes no claim. . . . It can not be bought or sold. 
But though so little submissive to obligation, it is highly 
sensitive to suggestion and clamorous appeal. Indeed, it 
soon perishes when fresh suggestion is withheld. Indirectly, 
therefore, and accepting time for an ally, we can control 
lOve mare 

Love and, Justice.—According to this view of the moral 
life, only when ‘‘the conjunct self’’ has taken the place 
of the separate self is altruism completely realized. Yet 
there is a qualification even here. For love is selective. 
It chooses one and leaves another, is exercised only toward 
definite persons, a little group, preferably two persons, 
and the smaller the group the warmer the love; while 
altruism is supposed to permeate life as a whole. We are 

12 Ibid., p. 87. 


13 Ibid., p. 92. 
14 Ibid., p. 101. 


360 The Moral Life 


led by this consideration to the idea of justice, once more. 
Ethically speaking, justice is the highest principle to be 
considered, that is, justice as ‘‘noble public love.’’ Such 
love is made universal, is freed from selection, and from 
the restrictions of knowledge, circumstance, and tempera- 
ment on which choice is based. Justice seeks to benefit all 
alike, disinterestedly. Hence, the main work of justice is 
its ‘‘equal distribution of advantage and its insistence that 
each individual shall be faithful to what he undertakes for 
the benefit of all.’’ + 

To accept this view as complete, however, is to be mind- 
ful of the truth frequently insisted on in the foregoing, 
namely, that no general principle is adequate by itself. 
Virtue for justice’s sake would be as general as duty for 
duty’s sake. In the last analysis it is love which makes 
justice complete, despite the qualifications which enter into 
the ethical conception of love. It is love for this particular 
form of social service in which one is engaging, this great 
work to be done, these persons with whom one is associated 
which makes justice definite and effective. 

The Concrete Universal._The road is from the particu- 
lar to the universal. The mother’s love for her own babe, 
as the selective expression of her motherhood, brings love 
for other babes. All mankind ‘‘loves a lover’’ because all 
mankind begins by loving a person through whom one 
comes to love love. The lover may indeed love an ideal at 
first, rather than a particular person, and may be disap- 
pointed to find that the ideal is not identified with the 
person. But love yields its intuition of what love in es- 
sence is by being selective before it generalizes. We begin 
even in youth to have ideals of love, through identification 
of love with parent, sister, brother, friend. If we ever 
in later life become for the most part dispassionate, serv- 
ing any one in need, as in war-time, the greater love which 
thus prompts us to a life of constant devotion to the good 
of others is quickened in us by the power of example, or 
because we have first been deeply touched by one or two 
individuals. And so in general we come to see that ethical 


“5 Ibid., p. 123. 


The Sphere of Altruism 363 


writer, versatile and joyous. If there is any tendency to 
excessive merry-making in the group, this may be offset 
by the stablizing presence of those who are more quiet; 
tendencies to be too practical are countered by idealistic 
sentiments; the less communicative may be helped into 
expression by those who excel in conversation; and what 
actuates the group in arriving at mutual decisions will 
usually be an articulation of what the Quakers call ‘‘the 
spirit of the meeting.’? No member may manage or even 
seek to manage any other too much. Ethical questions 
may never be mentioned, or even thought of, until it be- 
comes a question of choosing a vocation or helping some 
one in the group wisely to choose a partner in marriage. 
Then the mutuality which has grown up spontaneously, 
amidst the greatest freedom, not at all self-conscious, may 
be quickened into an ideal instance of the type of goodness 
for which we have been pleading. 

In such mutuality there is give-and-take without thought 
of return, with no explicit reference to reciprocity as a 
principle; hence there may be no awareness of obligation 
save so far as loyalty is concerned, the sincerity and fidel- 
ity to a high standard without which there can be no inti- 
mate friendship. Yet, to the ethical onlooker, eager to 
find ideal standards exemplified, here is an embodiment 
of those principles which are most essential to peace and 
good-will in the world. Granted such groups, brought 
together through mutual interests, and becoming aware of 
the deep meaning of their relationships, this mutuality 
might conceivably be extended throughout the world. 

The Implications of Friendship.—Ever since groups of 
men, interested in knowledge and virtue, gathered about 
Socrates in Athens, ethical philosophers have turned to 
friendship in actual life as yielding unsurpassed expression 
of the moral ideal; and both Plato and Aristotle assigned 
a very important place to friendship. Even the Christian 
term ‘‘brotherhood’’ is likely to be inferior, unless the 
principle on which friendship at its best comes about, is 
first made explicit; for it is said to be a duty to regard 
all men as brothers, while friendship springs from real 


364 The Moral Infe 


affinity. The serious problems of life enter into the ac- 
count in so far as we permit ourselves in thought, attitude, 
and conduct to drop down from the level of friendship— 
standing apart in criticism and condemnation, taking ad- 
vantage of one another, scheming, deceiving, fighting. To 
‘‘do things together,’’ to pursue the Beautiful, the True, 
and the Good in friendly interchange, as people young and 
old do in college, is indeed to realize an ideal which by 
implication is capable of development without limit, 
scarcely needing the formalities by which, later in life, we 
hedge ourselves about, becoming remote from one another, 
partisans where we might have been co-workers, sectarians 
where we should have been Christians. 

The gain is very great when such a social relationship, 
implicitly ethical, becomes explicitly so; for life is apt to 
exceed theory, and to come nearer an exemplification of 
the perfect ideal. Granted the realization of what a friend- 
ship group implies, there may then be an extension of the 
kind of deeds which it yields, just as groups of boy scouts 
and girl scouts, acquiring ideal principles among the faith- 
ful, begin to extend these by doing at least one act of kind- 
‘ness each day. Only gradually does it dawn upon us that 
here and there in such groups there is an actual realiza- 
tion of what the ideal kingdom is meant to be in the great- 
est way. Where everybody helps and everybody works, 
there is true codperation, and the leader of such a group 
(at once young and old) is the one whose privilege it is 
to make explicit the principles by which all are actuated 
as principles of very great value in the world at large. 

The same is true of friendships between older and 
younger persons beginning in the relationship of teacher 
and student, pastor and especially interested listener, 
physician and patient, official and co-worker, where such 
motives as gratitude and mutuality of interests enter in. 
So, too, co-workers in public service may find common- 
place relationships deepening into those that are ideal, and 
involving the question how far affection shall be allowed 
to take the lead, what ought to be done for the invalid 
father or the widowed mother, how one shall find one’s 


The Sphere of Altruism 365 


proper sphere of work in the world yet meet one’s greater 
obligations. 

Fundamental Relationships.—Our conclusion is that no 
principle by itself is absolute, but that each consideration 
—ideals of equality in the moral sense of the term, the 
principle of reciprocity, of compensation, mutuality, ser- 
vice, charity, justice, love—affords a clue to the funda- 
mental relationship of principles in the moral order. Love 
is the greatest motive which sends human beings forth into 
moral activity. It is love which energizes the will, and 
each of us tends to develop a prevailing love. But ethical 
love finds place among both principles and persons, and 
can no more be singled out in terms of mere duty than 
one can make happiness the object of all endeavor. Love 
creates the relationships which may then receive their best 
development through the guidance of wisdom, and the 
ideals of brotherhood or justice. Love is greater than vir- 
tue, gives of the best. Justice is intelligible as the highest 
social virtue, the goal which love strives for in the social 
order. Love of our fellowmen prompts us to service, but 
it is by rational inquiry that we become informed con- 
cerning those ends which must be realized if there shall 
be righteous consideration of all. 

For some of us then all tests resolve themselves into 
one: self-consistency. What pertains to my moral integ- 
rity is right. For I am then faithful alike to the ideal I am 
seeking to realize and to the self in its wholeness by which 
my being is linked with my fellowmen and with the divine 
purpose. ‘‘To thine own self be true,’’ is Shakespeare’s 
advice, put into the mouth of Polonius, ‘‘it must follow, 
as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any 
man.’’ It is not in the last analysis a question of what is 
done, as I join in companionship with my fellowmen, but 
of my endeavor to be the same self in process of complete 
realization wherever I am placed. What to some would be 
harmless might be for me a vice, and what I do with ease 
in my best work in the world others would find difficult. 
Each finds his own road to constancy, although each of us 
in being constant attains the same universal principle. 


366 The Moral Life. 


REFERENCES 


PatmER, G. H., Altruism, Its Nature and Varieties, 1919. 

RAUSCHENBUSCH, W., Christianity and the Social Crisis, 1907; 
Christianizing the Social Order, 1912, Part II. 

Preasopy, F. G., Jesus Christ and the Social Question, 1900. 

Cootry, C. H., Human Nature and the Social Order, 1902; Social 
Organization, 1909. 

Watuas, G., The Great Society, 1914. 

Mecxkuin, J. M., Introduction to Social Ethics, Chap. XIV. 

Dewey AND Turts, Ethies, Chap. XX VI. 

Emerson, R. W., Essays, “Compensation,” “Self-Reliance,” 
“Spiritual Laws,” “The Over-soul.” 


CHAPTER XXIII 
TESTS OF VIRTUE 


The Unity of Virtue —Our studies have disclosed sev- 
eral underlying conceptions which belong together in clos- 
est relation. As moral obligation imples a standard of 
goodness which enables us to test the values of various 
theories of the good, so duty as a central principle in- 
volves relationships between the several duties. Con- 
science as the moral constant of human history underlies 
manifold judgments in the name of goodness or duty. 
Virtue as a general principle is another term for the 
good, the right, or duty; while the virtues are modes of 
realizing goodness by means of the several duties. Con- 
science is the standard of judgment throughout. The unity 
of virtue follows from the unity of the good, duty, and 
conscience. In studying the individual and social virtues 
we have been making this unity explicit. 

Comparison of Systems.—The unity of the virtues 
within a given group, such as the cardinal virtues of 
Plato’s scheme, the larger classification of Aristotle’s sys- 
tem, or in Christian ethics of the primitive type, is more 
evident than when unity is sought by comparison of the 
groups of virtues found in the leading moral systems of 
the world. War was denounced in China by a great moral 
leader, Mencius (371-288 B.c.) with such emphasis as to 
foster the gentler virtues, while in Rome the martial 
virtues were predominant. Oriental countries in general 
are contrasted with Occidental because of the prevalence 
of the virtues pertaining to peace. Yet fiercely warlike 
tribes have come out of the East to invade the West. There 
are striking points of resemblance between the ethical 
systems of ancient China and ancient Greece, notably in 
the adoption of ‘‘nature’s way’’ understood as ‘‘Tao’’ 

367 


368 The Moral Life 


in China, and as ‘‘the nature of things’’ to be followed 
in the life of reason, by the Stoies. Emphasis in each 
case belongs on serenity, inner quiet, constancy, and the 
wise man’s ideal. Resemblances and identities have fre- 
quently been traced between the monastic life, with the 
virtnes which it involves, in the case of Buddhism and 
the life of virtue of medieval Christianity. With resem- 
blances or identities are always found differences, when 
actual lists of virtues are compared. The cardinal virtues 
of Plato, supplemented by liberality, magnificence, high- 
mindedness, ambition, and allied virtues, in the Aristotelian 
system, call for a different mode of life from that of the 
early Christian ideal of obedience, patience, benevolence, 
purity, humility, and alienation from the flesh and the 
world. The individual virtues are displaced for the most 
part in an ethical system like that of Hobbes, with its em- 
phasis on justice, equity, requital of benefits, moderate for- 
giveness, and the avoidance of pride and arrogance; while 
in other English ethical systems, reacting against the ego- 
ism of Hobbes’ doctrine, benevolence occupies the central 
position. Much depends on the place assigned either to 
sentiment or to reason as the test of virtue. Justice, verac- 
ity, and regard to common good might, with Butler, seem — 
to be the virtues everywhere prevailing; while Leslie Ste- 
phen would expect mercy, truth, and temperance. 

The differences in groups of virtues are what we would - 
rationally anticipate, when we note that it is the social 
life of a nation which gives content to virtue, as in ancient 
China, with its reverence for the past as perfect, its wor- 
ship of ancestors, and the conviction that filial virtue, rev- 
erence for superiors, and conformity to ancient custom are — 
central in the moral life; in contrast with India, with its 
easte-system, its belief in re-birth, and the virtues which 
follow from acceptance of spiritual pantheism and the life 
of contemplation. Identical lists of virtues are not to be 
expected, although we look for universal condemnation of 
cruelty, falsity, intemperance; and expect to find either 


1See Fullerton’s discussion of the content of virtue, Handbook of 
Ethical Theory, Chap. I. 


Tests of Virtue 369 


mercy or benevolence, sympathy or compassion, and justice 
or righteousness. Wherever the individual virtues are re- 
garded as important, we would look for temperance, bal- 
ance, the ‘‘just mean’’ or ‘‘golden mean.’’ The unity of 
virtue means diversity in unity, and a wide range of values, 
from the martial to the gentler virtues, from those per- 
taining to worldly success to those anticipating heaven as 
the abode of the blessed. If a test of this unity can be dis- 
covered, by reference, for example, to Myers’ History as 
Past Ethics, it is to be found in the central point of empha- 
sis in the given moral ideal, as justice becomes central for 
Plato or righteousness for Christianity. 

Contrasted Types.—The test, too, may be found in the 
type of character embodied in this ideal, for instance, (1) 
the balanced type of the ancient Grecks, (2) the other- 
worldly or self-denying type of the early Christians, (3) 
the ideal of Stoic self-control. The inner life then is a test, 
especially in its emphasis on freedom from outward circum- 
stance, as opposed to the Utilitarian type of virtue. Myers 
notes the fact that the fusion of races in Europe has re- 
sulted in a very composite type of conscience, with Greek, 
Roman, Hebraic, Celtic, Gothic, and Slavonie elements.’ 
‘‘This heterogeneous conscience, so different, for instance, 
from the comparatively homogeneous conscience of ancient 
Egypt and of China, has been the most important factor 
in the life and civilization of the European people. It is 
largely because Europe has been constantly getting a new 
conscience that its history has been so disturbed and so 
progressive, just as it is because China has had the same 
Confucian conscience for two thousand years and more, 
that her history has been so uneventful and unchanging.’’ 
If then there appears to be no common list of virtues as 
the guide, what is indeed common is the zeal with which 
the prevalent type is adhered to, whatever its content. 
Hence Myers generalizes by saying: ‘‘Do the thing thou 
seest to be good; realize thy ideal. In the words of Sa- 
batier, ‘The essential thing in the world is not to serve 
this ideal or that, but with all one’s soul to serve the ideal 

2 Op. cit., p. 7. 


370 The Moral Life 


which one has chosen.’ Such loyalty to one’s ideal is moral 
goodness. ‘This imperative of conscience that one be true 
to the best one knows is the only thing absolute and ecate- 
gorical in the utterance of the moral faculty.’’ ? 

Codes as Tests.—If we compare such a code as the Ten 
Commandments with codes adopted by other peoples, we 
note impressive differences, and in case of a given command 
we find variations dependent on custom. The command, 
‘‘Thou shalt not kill,’’ depends in its application on the 
interpretation, for example, in the case of capital punish- 
ment or war. In eontrast with the absolute veracity which 
one might expect among the peoples, we meet the lie of 
courtesy, the clever lie, the lie to the stranger. Hence one 
asks, with Fullerton, ‘‘Where does the silence of indiffer- 
ence shade into purposed concealment, and the latter into 
what is unequivocally deception?’’* Sincerity or truth- 
fulness has often been rated very low in the Western world, 
also the keeping of contracts and treaties; but for Zoroaster 
truthfulness was the paramount virtue, international mor- 
ality occupied the highest rank, the keeping of treaties 
was a sacred obligation.» It is right according to some 
ancient codes to hold slaves, suicide was regarded by some 
as a virtuous act, or the right of the father to kill grown-up 
children or to sell them as slaves was recognized. Uni- 
versal benevolence, tolerance, and compassion have been 
advocated by Buddhists as seldom by Christians. It would 
be difficult to determine the nature of justice, veracity, or 
even the common good by comparison of codes, but a 
greater code might be developed by selecting the nobler 
precepts of various systems. In the Buddhistie Ten Com- 
mandments the duties toward God are omitted, while in 
addition to the commands not to kill, steal, or lie, it is 
said, ‘‘Thou shalt not drink intoxicating drink, defame, 
boast, be stingy, or angry, or revile the three precious 
ones,’’ ® 


3 Ibid., p. 10. 

4Op. cit., p. 12. 

5 See Myers, op. cit., p. 127. 

6 For points of excellence in the ancient Egyptian system, see 
Myers, op. cit., p. 37. 


en) ee ee eae 


Tests of Virtue 371 


Ancient Greece had a very great advantage in the fac 
that there was no priestly class to enforce theocratic mor- 
ality, with its artificial ritual duties and its conservative 
tendencies.’ Hence in Greece the points of excellence were 
to be found in the philosophical systems, not in a series 
of prohibitions. The nearest approach to a criterion may 
perhaps be found by comparing the spirit of various codes 
and noting points of resemblance or identity, without dwell- 
ing on differences in content, as in Buddhism and Chris- 
tianity, both being universal systems teaching the broth- 
erhood of man, exalting the gentle and self-denying vir- 
tues, requiring self-conquest, and enjoining benevolence 
as a duty.® 

The Golden Rule as a Test.—More direct guidance is 
found by selecting one precept or rule and considering its 
universal significance. The Golden Rule is a maxim imply- 
ing a judgment of disinterestedness, regard for all con- 
cerned, on the ground that as moral beings we are ‘‘mem- 
bers one of another.’’ It implies Mill’s ‘‘disinterested and 
benevolent spectator,’’ Samuel Clark’s ‘‘rule of righteous- 
ness,’” namely, that ‘‘we should so deal with every man, 
as in like circumstances we could reasonably expect he 
should with us.’’ It is expressed in other terms by Kant 
as the categorical imperative, with the accompanying 
maxims. In the Mahabharata it is said: ‘‘Let no man do 
to another that which would be repugnant to himself; this 
is the sum of righteousness; the rest is according to inclina- 
tion.’? When Confucius was asked if there were a word 
which would serve as a rule of practice for all one’s life 
he said: ‘‘Is not reciprocity such a word?’’ Confucius 
also indicated four special attainments to be made by the 
superior man: to serve his father as he would require his 
son to serve him, to serve his prince as he would require 
his minister to serve him, to serve his elder brother as 
he would require his younger brother to serve him, and to 
set the example in behaving to a friend as he would require 
the friend to behave to him. 


7 Ibid., p. 173. 
8 Myers, op. cit., p. 121. 


372 The Moral Infe 


Throughout the various formulations of this rule the 
implication is that all moral rules ought to be obeyed with- 
out regard to selfish considerations. ‘‘Do your duty dis- 
interestedly’’ is the universal command. Dewey and Tufts 
interpret the principle to mean, not a command to act or 
forbear acting in a given way; but “‘it is a tool for analyz- 
ing a special situation, the right or wrong being determined 
by the situation in its entirety, and not by the rule as 
such.’?® The mere adoption of this rule, in business, for 
example, would not then imply the immediate settlement 
of all industrial disputes and difficulties; the rule would 
not tell just what to do in all situations: what it yields is 
‘<a point of view from which to consider acts.’’ 

What This Rule Demands.—Is this point of view ade- 
quate? Some critics have maintained that it is not. A 
typical criticism is that this rule implies a private stand- 
ard only, hence that it fails to give sufficient guidance 
for group relations: ‘‘the Golden Rule assumes that the 
parties concerned are related as like to like.’’??® But in 
groups people are found to be unlike, and to have unlike 
functions; while unlike groups have relationships with 
other unlike groups. The reply is that the rule need not 
be regarded as a private standard only, and should not be 
limited, as Adler thinks it would be to the relationships of 
those who are like one another. It calls upon the moral 
agent to put himself in the other person’s place. In Con- 
fucius’ formulation, the rule includes the idea of ‘‘reci- 
procity,’’ and this principle is meant to apply to like and 
unlike, among individuals and groups. 

Adler’s corresponding term is ‘‘equivalence,’’? as the 
basis for defining distinctions: the true spiritual ideal is 
individual-social, ethico-religious, based on recognition of 
equality in worth plus unlikeness of nature and function. 
Hence Adler’s reconstructed rule is: ‘‘Seek to elicit the 
best in others, and thereby you will bring to light the best 
that is in yourself . . . let the unlike seek to elicit the 
unlike.’’ This more explicit statement however simply 


29 Op. cit., p. 334. 
10 Felix Adler, Reconstruction of the Spiritual Ideal,’’ 1924, 


Tests of Virtue 373 


brings out an additional meaning already implicit in the 
original rule. No one would be likely to assume that when 
bidden to regard his fellowmen as members one of an- 
other such brotherhood means identity or likeness; since 
the whole idea of membership in an organism is based on 
recognition of differences in type and function, as in Paul’s 
comparison between the eye, the hand, and other bodily 
members, and the vocations to be fulfilled by men living 
and working together ‘‘all in the same spirit.’’ Granted 
the qualification with regard to unlike members attaining 
different functions, we may make the rule as brief as in 
Augustine’s formulation of it: ‘‘Do as thou wouldst be 
done by.’’ 

Moderation as the Test.—If any rule must be under- 
stood in the light of diversity of elements and differences 
in specific situations to which man is called upon to adjust 
himself, the same should be said of any maxim or proverb. 
‘‘Nothing to excess’? summarizes, for those who already 
understand it, the classic type of ethical theory which is 
the world’s greatest contribution to individual morality, 
that is, the Greek ideal. There are many social situations 
in which the idea of the golden mean applies as directly as 
to individual matters calling for temperance or moderation, 
for example, various situations in which self-sacrifice is 
assumed to be the highest demand. Self-sacrifice, when 
wisely moderated, is freed from objections, is transformed 
into ‘‘devotion’’ or ‘‘participation.’’ But moderation or 
eontrol from within must not be carried to excess, or the 
moral agent will lose all spontaneity. It is easier to see 
that courage is a mean between cowardice and foolhardi- 
ness, temperance a mean between licentiousness and in- 
sensibility, than to contrast ambition and lack of ambition.™ 
The idea of moderation suggests self-consciousness or self- 
culture: there are times to forget self in action, to lose one’s 
self that one may find it. 

Universality as the Test—Examination of the maxims 
which have come down to us from the great nations, leads 
one to the conclusion that no summary statement covers all 

11 Cf, Aristotle, Ethics, Bk. II, Chap. VII. 


374 The Moral Life 


cases, but that everything depends upon what the prin- 
ciple under consideration is taken to mean with respect to 
given situations; and sometimes one rule is more appli- 
eable than another, according to the use one habitually 
makes of it. At times it is sufficient to consider, with 
Kant, whether in all seriousness one would will to have 
one’s proposed conduct become a universal law. But at 
other times, it is more specifically a question of another’s 
higher good, for example, when prompted by charity either 
to give material things, supply money, or refrain from mak- 
ing such gifts and to open the way toward a moral oppor- 
tunity instead. Again, the greater good of a group, of the 
state or nation may be in view, and various loyalties are 
brought in contrast. Conduciveness to self-realization or 
the fullness of life is sometimes the test, granted much 
prior knowledge and experience concerning that which 
contributes to this ideal. One may consider now this test, 
now that, among the three or four which have proved most 
workable, bearing in mind that the moral situation is too 
rich in meanings and values to be reduced to fewer tests. 
Universality must then in the end signify variety in 
unity. 

The inertia, sense of dependence, allegiance to authority 
in which most of us grow up is such that we would like to 
believe that a brief collection of precepts or prohibitions 
applies to all cases, so that all that is required of us will be 
to select the right one to fit the instance in point. Thus the 
Ten Commandments tell us what not to do, while the 
Beatitudes praise the highest motives to action, and so we 
seem to have a complete system of tests. But a rule to be 
applied without thought would be devoid of moral value. 
Morality is always a problem. The Greek maxim, ‘‘noth- 
ing to excess,’’ means the adoption of a philosophy, and the 
Greeks did not contribute a code to show precisely how 
one should live this philosophy by rule. No system of com- 
mandments actually in vogue has settled all of the most 
vital problems. The world is still considering under what 
conditions it is right to kill, in the long list of possible 
occasions for killing, including the duties of the exeen- 








5 sel ee eg Pi hg Sy cle ee 


pie 


Tests of Virtue 375 


tioner, the soldier, the problems of self-defense, the pro- 
tection of society against criminals and the insane. 

Neither in theory nor in practice has the world come any 
nearer a solution of all problems than by means of the 
central principle which has guided our study throughout, 
namely, the only supreme law is the universality of the 
command to do what is judged to be right, what is the 
higher or greater good. If any specific command or group 
of commands were absolute, taken as it reads, there would 
be relativity indeed. It is impossible to divorce the moral 
principle from the agent, his conscience, philosophy, series 
of specific social situations involving problems and calling 
for cooperative response. 

Casuistry—No system of casuistry (the attempt to 
foresee all typical cases and lay down rules for meeting 
them) has ever proved exhaustive or satisfactory ; and one 
might easily become lost in the woods for the trees if one 
were to try to find one’s way through the minute distinc- 
tions demanded by such a system. The effort to develop 
a calculus of moral values to be attributed to each motive 
and deed, with exact contrasts between vice and virtue, 
turpitude and innocency, would be more hopeless than the 
quest for a calculus of pleasures. Casuistry does not settle 
the problem of the conflict of duties: what settles it is 
resoluteness in facing the issues which must be met, as 
when war arises, by bringing to bear the wisdom which life 
has thus far yielded, by the comparison, for example, of 
loyalties.12 The great need in any case is some central 
ideal, like the martial ideal of character (Bushido) which 
has meant so much in creating moral consciousness in 
Japan ;'* freedom as fostered by our forefathers in Amer- 
ica; or social service as the recent synthetic ideal in many 
lands. 

Qualifying Ideas.—Where there is greatest regard for 
ancestors and parents, as in China and Japan, this ideal 
will enter into the whole moral system, find expression in 

12 Sea, for instance, Myers’ analysis of the ideal of knighthood, 


op. cit., p. 306. 
13 Myers, tbid., p. 79. 


376 The Moral Infe 


the rules and precepts, the inquiry into motives, intentions, 
and the consequences of moral action. Where there is 
acceptance of a divine sanction, it will be difficult to avoid 
the blighting effects of the idea of authority, likely to pre- 
vent freedom of thought in analyzing the meanings and 
applications of the moral code. No less blighting are ideas 
regarding the supernatural which introduce belittling dis- 
tinctions into all our thinking about the natural man—to 
what extent his nature or conduct may be said to be good, 
in contrast with ‘‘spiritual goodness,’’ which is said to be 
the only true goodness, as opposed to ‘‘moral goodness’’ in 
ethical systems admitting no supernatural sanction. 

Causistry seems to be called for by any moral system de- 
pendent upon a theology, adopted on authority; and ecasu- 
istry is open to the many objections raised by moralists and 
well summed up by Dewey and Tufts: (1) it tends to 
magnify the letter of morality at the expense of its spirit; 
(2) in practice it tends to a legal view of conduct; (3) 
while its worst evil is that it tends to deprive the moral 
life of freedom and spontaneity.** 

Limitations of Rules—The rules drawn up for the 
guidance of practice tend to run into fixed customs, that is, 
to become static; hence they are to be understood as intel- 
lectual rather than imperative, as means of judging social 
situations, for example, by aid of the Golden Rule. But 
if rules are to be means to the dynamic, the principle in- 
volved must be kept relatively flexible if life or spontaneity 
is to be preserved. What is to be kept in view is the greater 
end to be attained by means of the lesser ends which become 
our objectives from time to time. 

Thus freedom to believe, and worship, and live as their 
consciences prompted them was the idea kept in view by 
our forefathers in encountering the hardships of existence 
in primitive New England and in reacting against the op- 
pression due to the rule of kings. When a commandment 
is broken by a group living up to its moral ideal, the higher 
or greater good becomes the rule. To draw up rules to 
cover all exceptions and try to justify them would be to 

14 Ethics, p. 327. 


Tests of Virtue BY iri 


overlook the truth once more that even the Commandments 
are means to ends, are intelligible only in the light of the 
moral spirit which uses formulas but can not submit to be 
used by them. In actual practice every man simplifies his 
moral philosophy to the few principles which, confessedly 
imperfect, serve his purpose and come to represent the 
highest values. Obedience, chastity, and benevolence may 
be the virtues which man keeps before him as tests in a 
given period in history; while justice may be his ideal, 
and social justice his problem, in another age. The idea 
of ‘‘reciprocity’’ is too general for most of us; the concep- 
tion of society as an organism seems open to too many ob- 
jections, to others; and objections are made to every work- 
ing idea which, as in case of the good wi‘l or loyalty, seems 
devoid of specific content. The obligation which moral 
life in society puts upon us is that we shall consider the 
specific content as a real problem. 

Test Questions.—In facing issues and considering vari- 
ous plans of action tentatively, one naturally asks one’s 
self, ‘‘How does this plan seem? Does it ring true? Is 
it right?’’ Meanwhile, one sends one’s thought forward 
in imagination to the time for taking action in the given 
sroup—in business, in a philanthropic institution, in the 
missionary field, in the war-zone. What would be the main 
incentive to such action? What rises up within one’s 
spirit in protest or approval? Is one able to anticipate 
action with one’s whole nature, in freedom, so that this 
course of action appears to be the right one? 

Having joined a certain Christian church, shall one be 
loyal to its creed in any event, or be faithful to the increas- 
ing liberalism of various leaders in different denomina- 
tions? Much will depend upon one’s insight into the 
original Christianity, the stress put on the dynamic ele- 
ment in religion, in contrast with formulas. What is one’s 
real community—that of the neighborhood as given, of this 
or that organization, one’s race, or ‘‘the beloved com- 
munity’’ of those who espouse the same moral ideal, say 
social justice, spiritual freedom, or the right to pursue 
truth wherever it may lead? Which loyalty ought to stand 


378 The Moral Life 


first—to the profession, the union, or public health 
and public welfare? Much will turn upon the degree of 
freedom one has gained from sheer partisanship, as in poli- 
tics. Something will also depend on one’s view of eco- 
nomic determinism, expediency, policy; one’s attitude in. 
regard to racial prejudices, and on any other attitude or 
habit likely to be put in relation to moral standards. 
The Value of Analysis—Our knowledge of the sub- 
jective life, with its tendencies toward extreme conscien- 
tiousness, introversion, or self-analysis, has taught most of 
us by this time that it is wise to avoid prolonged weighing 
of motives, as if by balancing all the alternatives one could 
arrive at a decision. By nature some of us tend to analyze 
too much; hence we lose impetus, hesitate till the only way 
out seems to be to do something, anything to end the un- 
certainty. The solution proffered by the practical man is, 
‘‘Plunge in, show your eolors,’’ try out a plan; for the 
practical man dreads irresoluteness of will. Yet, as we 
have repeatedly noted, there are two native types, intro- 
verts and extroverts, those who dwell on motives and those 
who look to the effects, those who tend to be either idealists 
or empiricists, rationalists or utilitarians. The ideal moral 
type is synthetic. No one can avoid minute analyses who 
would see the issue through to the end, and we find that 
even in the mechanical age in which we live, with its 
reactions against ‘‘the New England conscience,’’ fine dis- 
tinctions are being drawn where no moralizers ever dis- 
criminated before. In the last analysis moral thought is 
neither subjective nor objective in the sense in which these 
terms have been used. What is required is that we shall 
think through to the end, whatever line of interests we 
follow. Perplexities of conscience afford opportunity for 
knowing what conscience is, not inerrant or infallible, not 
an inscrutable ‘‘voice,’’ not a mere feeling or sense of 
what is right, not a ‘‘self-evident’’ intuition; but a grow- 
ing power of moral judgment and righteous action, devel- 
oped by use and criticism. Fortunate indeed are we if we 
have raised the central questions involved in the conflict 
of duties. A comparison of the customs of America with 


Tests of Virtue 379 


those of China and Japan, may help us more than any 
abstract analysis of marital and filial virtues. 

One need not however hesitate to analyze personal ex- 
periences, because some men and women in the past have 
been too scrupulous. It is incomplete subjectivity which is 
our undoing, not introspection in itself. If the resource 
at times is to consult our friends, visit a physician, or 
psychologist or clergyman; at other times it is to ‘‘walk 
alone,’’ throwing off as many environing social influences 
as one can, seeing the issues and seeing them whole, as 
indeed we try to envisage life and see it whole. The man 
of strong moral faith sees a relation between his problems 
and his ability to meet them. He is affirmative. He does 
not trouble over the fact that relativities beset him where 
he anticipated something absolute. He has learned once 
for all that everything moral takes on conditions, every- 
thing perfect is achieved through the imperfect, while 
everything divine is manifested amid the mitigating fac- 
tors of what we now briefly call ‘‘the personal equation.”’ 

Conscientious Scruples.——What then shall one do, given 
a supposedly sincere or faithful friend, who has played 
false? What shall the apprentice do who finds his instruc- 
tor dishonest, his employer resorting to the tricks of the 
trade? What is the newspaper reporter to do who is bid- 
den to work up into a scandalous story the bare facts of 
a love-affair in which both parties are innocent, although 
there are damaging appearances? It matters little what 
the situation is, if so be it suggests central issues which 
seem in utter conflict for the moment. One may have op- 
portunity to be of lasting service to the man who has told 
a falsehood to a friend. He may be passing through one of 
the great crises of life, unable to see anything clearly. And 
so his lie may be a superficial incident. The youth may 
discover himself in a profound way, morally, for the first 
time, who realizes that he must decide between dishonesty 
in trade and fidelity to an honest standard. For the news- 
paper writer the opportunities are great indeed, when he 
realizes that he is a responsible participant in making and 
re-making public opinion. 


380 The Moral Lafe 


We have seen that it is not rational sharply to divide 
motive from consequence, since the two are aspects of the 
moral deed in process of taking shape and becoming overt. 
It follows that it is permissible at times to dwell on the 
motive, while at other times it is wiser to note results. 
In the end, we learn how to test virtue both by examining 
motives to see what was wrong, and by profiting when ex- 
perience teaches its most effective lessons. Retrospectively, 
we see where impulse played its fateful part, and we learn 
what impulse sprang from, that is, from swift desire, 
vague sentiment, blind emotion, and, negatively, lack of 
self-control, indecision, failure to consider carefully what 
ought to be done. Inquiring more searchingly, we learn 
from what mode of life higher motives and bettered results 
spring; hence we learn what virtues are central, for in- 
stance, temperance, order, or balance. Thus our insight 
becomes more nearly complete. The test of the individual 
virtues, especially, is seen to be the state of mind and 
character from which they arise; for instance, inner poise, 
peace, inner control as tending to the best-adjusted life. 
Less and less analysis of moral states is required, in so far 
as a mode of life is fostered which includes all these by 
including something better, that is, a life characterized by 
faith, a purpose, with a work to do which yields deepening 
satisfaction and makes for fullness of life. We are bidden 
to be, as well as to do, and so character is an end, not a 
means simply, although character is also a means as con- 
tributory to the moral development and well-being of 
others. 

Coming to Judgment.— We need not dwell then on the 
value of self-examination. A man must indeed come to 
judgment, see wherein he is insincere, not in earnest, and 
he must avoid compromise and self-deception. A man 
should know himself better than his critics and those who 
praise him. But many matters once deemed primary are 
now seen to be secondary, since we found solutions for 
problems in enriched social life and service which men 
tried to solve by methods of lonely meditation, and by 
dwelling on sins in dejected self-condemnation. It is much 


“ 


Tests of Virtue 381 


more reasonable to endeavor to live by principle than to 
examine one’s self to see whether one is actually conscien- 
tious in this or that undertaking, and so we single out in 
public life men of principle as our models, in contrast with 
partisans who put the welfare of a party above the good 
of the nation as a whole. There is an advantage in admit- 
ting a fault, a moral necessity in acknowledging a sin; but 
the moral life must be affirmative through and through. 
The complete solution is found by realizing our capacities 
in a mode of life lifted above both self-complacency and 
self-reproach. 

Evidences of Moral Success.—Many of our difficulties 
are doubtless due to conflict between teachings taken on 
from various sources, at home, at school, through contacts 
with society, and the adoption of a religious creed. What 
we need is the centralizing principle expressed above in 
varied terms, which Confucius and other law-givers saw 
so clearly when they formulated the Golden Rule. To see as 
an illuminating truth that we are so intimately participants 
in the moral life that even the figure of the ‘‘organism”’ 
falls short of the moral reality, is to realize that mutuality 
in doing our part is the one great opportunity. One need 
not devote much time to asking whether this or that deed 
bears evidence of virtue, if it be a sign of goodness or of 
duty faithfully performed. For one’s consciousness spon- 
janeously yields from time to time unmistakable evidences 
that productivity, service and duty coincide in work well 
done, the work which one is fitted by type and capacity to 
do. What one thus gives is mutual, it arouses reciprocal 
-action, is an instance of what one would will to have be- 
come universal, namely, that all men should so think, will, 
live, and work as to give of what each can give best for the 
good of the whole of which one is ever more truly a part. 

Moral Correlations.—In this deeper sense of dedication 
to what is best for humanity, it might be said that there 
is ‘‘no such thing as a conflict of duties.’?1° For that 
which I am led to do from time to time as my life or work 


15 Cf. Green, op. ctt., p. 355. 


382 The Moral Infe 


progresses is what develops out of the contributory mode 
of life I am living, by ‘‘putting first things first,’’ doing 
first my work in the world, for example, teaching the sub- 
jects I am best able to teach to those whose mental types 
or age I am best adapted, together with leading a mode of 
life in accord with this universal principle. But until one 
attains such harmony as this, conflict of duties certainly 
exists, inasmuch as this very mutuality which serves as our 
clue also involves obligations to family, to parents, the 
community, the nation, so that we are often as much bound 
as free—‘‘finding ourselves,’’ as we say, learning where we 
can best fit in, what we can best do; how by some fortunate 
insight we may learn to meet all these obligations so as to 
be faithful to each in its place. Oftentimes we realize that 
we do not know enough to classify this opportunity as 
greater or higher than that. Hence we depend on some 
other principle. We see ‘‘in a glass darkly.’’ Perfectly 
to know our full duty would be to see ‘‘face to face.’ The 
test of virtue is found in the realization that one is moving 
toward this clear vision by endeavoring to do as well as 
possible what is at hand. Hence one tends to realize the 
nature of virtue, not in the sense of credit due to one’s 
self, but by realizing it as many others are achieving it 
who are working side by side with us. When we under- 
stand this inter-relatedness we need no longer be disap- 
pointed that no rule applies to all cases without explana- 
tions; for we realize that the life of goodness is multiform, 
with various lines of approach, each with its rule, it may be, 
but with differences due to diverse situations. 

The Geometry of Virtue.—It is still maintained by some 
that as in mathematies there is but one solution to a prob- 
lem that is right, so in moral conduct, as HE. EH. Slosson has 
recently insisted, only one way is right. The argument is 
that truth is one, falsehoods are infinite; nine-tenths of the 
ideas that come into our heads are wrong; nine-tenths of 
the impulses that beset us are wrong; while rules of con- 
duct are as invariable and absolute as the rules of geometry, 
the difficulty being that we can not see so clearly in ethies 
as in mathematics. It follows from this assumption that 


Tests of Virtue 383 


there are no indifferent actions, no equivalent choices; 
hence it is not by any means a matter of indifference, for 
example, what street one turns down when out for a stroll: 
if you turn down one street, you may be run over by an 
automobile, if you turn down the next you may meet a 
man who will make your fortune, while on the third you 
may catch a fatal microbe, or on the fourth may meet the 
girl you want to marry. In our uncertainty there seems 
no way to decide save to toss up a penny, but in reality 
there is but one right way, one straight and narrow path. 
If we knew what this is we would take it. Our disagree- 
ments are due solely to our ignorance. 

Objections to this View.—The fallacy here is in the 
tacit assumption of determinism as absolute, in a universe 
so meager that only one road leads to our destination. If 
the test of virtue were so simple, we might well return to 
the Ethics of Spinoza, and undertake to finish his ambi- 
tious attempt to make a complete explanation of every 
motive actuating the human self. Or, we might return to 
Socrates, agreeing absolutely that ‘‘knowledge is virtue.’’ 
A profounder logic has taught us that many of the nine 
other statements put in relation with the tenth that is 
judged to be wholly true are also in part true; hence that 
nine-tenths of the ideas that come into our heads are not 
‘‘wrong,’’ but partly right. A truer psychology has 
shown us that all of the other nine impulses are partly 
right, each is wholly so in its own sphere, as in the case 
of impulses to procure food, seek shelter, produce and care 
for offspring, acquire knowledge, manifest beauty, and 
achieve goodness. Hedonism as a test of virtue is partly 
right. The true ethical theory is synthetic. True moral 
conduct is cumulative. Granted increase of virtue—not 
through increase of knowledge alone—more and more mat- 
ters may be seen in true relations. Meanwhile, the roads 
to virtue are so numerous that no one who is enlightened 
will dogmatise, as much as to say, ‘‘In my set of rules you 
will find absolute guides to virtue: all other rules are 
wrong.’’ It is because of this surpassing wealth of the 
moral life that freedom can be a glorious opportunity. 


384 The Moral Lnfe 


The Complete Test.—There are, indeed, indifferent ac- 
tions. The Greek Stoics saw this long ago. Many of the 
sentiments which pass in and out of ovr consciousness 
are without moral significance or result. What is not in- 
different is genuine but truly significant thought, reason, 
will, conduct in accord with the rational nature of things. 
It is a matter of vital moment that I should know myself, 
discover what I can do best, and do it with a will, working 
together with my fellowmen toward social perfection. But, 
‘‘nothing to excess,’” is still my rule. I need a pastime, 
need to do some things without set purpose. I need to 
profit by those moralists who have made morals too dry, 
too serious, sanctimonious, self-conscious, and self-right- 
-eous. Joy, happiness is a great and sure test of virtue. It 
is not a matter of seriousness of purpose alone. All the 
virtues are not found in the Hebraic code. Christianity 
is constantly in the process of qualification, that is, in its 
actual working out in the minds and hearts of men. Ulti- 
mately speaking, there may be but one system of the vir- 
tues. But actual history as ‘‘past ethics’’ is so rich that 
we find each great nation making its contribution, just as 
the individual contributes what he can do best. The com- 
plete test of virtue then is found both in its central prin- 
ciple, implied in the Golden Rule, and in the several virtues 
which make manifest the rich content of the universal prin- 
ciple. 

Tr practice one should guard against the apparent con- 
flict of duties arising from the fact that there is what Green 
calls ‘‘a competition of reverences,’’ whose injunctions, real 
or supposed, do not agree.® Many of us are in the habit 
of identifying with duty injunctions given us by this or 
that person in authority, this or that creed; these matters 
of advice are inconsistent, and so the situation becomes need- 
lessly complex. What we need is a centralizing purpose 
in life, an ethical philosophy of life’s situation so that 
we are not disconcerted by differences which mean wealth 
of possibilities in the moral life. Any rule or maxim which 


16 Op, cit., p. 355. 


Tests of Virtue 385 


we have found wisely applicable is worth keeping, even 
though we do not yet see how it accords with other pre- 
cepts. Simplicity of statement is essential to concentra- 
tion. 

The Need of Simplifying.—We repeat, the apparently 
insuperable conflict is often no real conflict at all. We 
have made social life too complex, with too many interests, 
too many clubs, organizations, and societies. In each case 
a so-called duty is imposed, and the duties fall heavily on 
the very few who do the major part of the work. One’s 
duty is not to attend to all these interests which divide 
up a person’s time so that nothing is dohe well, but to 
find a basis of reconciliation or settlement on which those 
matters can be adjusted which belong together in one’s 
chosen universe of desire, as in the life of a musician, 
painter, teacher, or man of affairs who dedicates himself 
to his art or science. There is no conflict between the 
eternal values. The relative conflicts are between instru- 
mental values. Most of us are in process of learning just 
what values are instrumental and how. It is well to cherish 
the hope of complete adjustment between the values which 
a man finds important in just his life and his vocation. 
And the ethical test should always be a means of simpli- 
fying. 

A Working Scale of Values.—Hence we may well ask, 
What do we mean when we say that we should put first 
things first? How shall one attain a scale of values? The 
effort to find a scale of values is at least as old as Plato’s 
time. It comes with the judgment that there are lower and 
higher goods; the lower depend upon the soul, in Plato’s 
system, while the soul depends upon wisdom. The eardi- 
nal virtues are higher than those which serve as means to 
ends in doing one’s work for the state. The highest culmi- 
nates in a vision of the Good. So in any system the scale 
takes its clue from that which is regarded as goodness, 
virtue, rectitude, or justice, whatever the term may be. In 
practice the scale is likely to turn upon the following essen- 
tials: (1) Human considerations belong in the first rank. 
It is a question of being human in the home, as a teacher, 


386 The Moral Lafe 


as an official, as head of a business house, president of an 
institution; but also as a sub-official, as clerk, expressman, 
grocer, farmer, neighbor. Things, processes, details be- 
long in second rank. Hence with matters belonging in the 
first rank will come considerateness, kindness, forgiveness, 
willingness to begin again; and, especially, recognition of 
individual worth. (2) The values which serve human 
well-being belong in the second rank—food, clothing, shel- 
ter, economic values—that is to say, the methods whereby 
we provide for these, the processes which we endeavor to 
use but which are after all for use, and are not to use us. 
(3) The added values which yield recreation, social inter- 
change, contrast, and help to preserve spontaneity. 

The Still Small Voice.—To what extent may the so- 
called voice of conscience be regarded as a test in all these ° 
matters which we have been passing in review? There is 
a respect in which this is the supreme test, despite the 
criticisms passed on intuition and conscience. For, granted 
that neither intuition nor conscience is a separate power 
functioning apart from the content of experience, there 
remains no ground for discounting the effective way in 
which the individual brings together those considerations 
which for him are decisive. Although any element of the 
process is dependent and codperative, not absolute and in- 
fallible, in moral integration there is power. 

One of the great moral values of the ages is the still 
small voice, regarded in our childhood as ‘‘the voice of 
God in the soul of man.’’ Inquiring into this voice as 
heard amidst the din of human conflicts, we are constrained 
to say that it is scarcely a voice at all; but merely an un- 
critical projection of our own consciousness. But when we 
consider that every one of us at times needs to ‘‘walk 
alone’’ in order to throw off all influences that might be 
prejudicial, while resolutely seeking to know what is right, 
we must admit that conscience may be discerned in silence 
and solitude when it can not be distinguished in any other 
way. And so the emphasis belongs on the stillness, not 
on the voice. 

The reality of what we believe in depends to a large extent 


Tests of Virtue 887 


on our intuition, and intuition may always be regarded 
from above as well as from below. Looked at from below, 
we are thinking of its processes. Regarded from above, we 
are concerned with what it discloses. We believe in God, 
for instance, ‘‘because there are experiences in life at once 
so arresting and so significant that apart from God it is 
psychologically impossible for us to account for them.’’ !” 
In this sense of the word intuition is defined as ‘‘inner 
response to the divine communication . . . the one final 
and convincing proof of revelation.’’+® What we need is 
a unifying principle in terms of which we can verify our 
creative experience, ‘‘without limiting the possibility of 
a similar enlargement and enrichment of life in other per- 
sons.’? For what my ‘‘voice’’ tells me may not be what 
yours tells you. Mine may check me by an impeding im- 
pression, as Socrates’ ‘‘divine something’’ stopped him if 
he were about to start in the wrong direction. What yours 
discloses to you may be a flash of insight surpassing all 
other moments of meditation so that, for you, there is 
moral conviction at last. In any event, Emerson’s prin- 
ciple is the direct one: ‘‘There is guidance for each one of 
us, and by lowly listening we shall hear the right word.”’ 
The ‘‘lowly listening’’ process is conscience in its purest 
moment of receptivity. The Quaker, believing in ‘‘inner 
guidance’’ as the supreme rule of practical life, brings to 
his receptivity a whole series of anticipations. The silence 
is his mode of simplification. Others would have different 
modes. Let each follow the method which he finds best. 
Let every sensitively organized person especially heed the 
fact that times for coming to one’s self are imperative. 
What is needed by all is moral integration, conviction. 
And this may be best attained and best preserved by keep- 
ing both thought and life fairly simple. 


17W. A. Brown, Imperialistic Religion and the Religion of 
Democracy, 1923, p. 188. 
18 [bid., p. 191. 


388 The Moral Life 


REFERENCES 


Green, T. H., Prolegomena to Ethics, Bk. IV, Chaps. I, II. 

Macxenzig£, J. 8., Manual of Ethics, Bk. III, Chap. III. 

DEWEY AND Turts, Ethics, p. 325, foll.; Chap. XX. 

Myers, P. V. N., History as Past Ethics, Chaps. III, V, X. 

PAULSEN, F., System of Ethics, trans., Bk. I, Chap. II. 

RASHDALL, H., The Theory of Good and Evil, Bk. III, Chap. V. 

Extitwoop, C. A., Christianity and Social Science, Chap. VI. 

Hume, R. E., The World’s Living Religions (comparison of 
ethical systems), 1924. 

Casot, E. L., Every Day Ethics, 1906, Chaps. VII, VIII, XVI. 


CHAPTER XXIV 
MORAL FORCES 


The Problem of Idealism.—We have seen that some 
moralists bring motives and ideals to the fore; while others 
dwell on present conditions which permit expression of 
utilitarian values. It is easy for the idealist to overlook 
the fact that moral values, in one aspect eternal, are to be 
made temporal through gradual achievements in the world 
of experience which we all know. But those who put stress 
on social conditions as readily neglect the universal prin- 
ciple which gives system to the particulars of morality 
progressively attained. In other terms, faith is vested in 
God, who will, we trust, somehow bring the world round 
to righteousness. Or, faith is supposed to turn upon hu- 
man accomplishment, with God left out of account. Again, 
it is a question of ‘‘the world of appreciation,’’ and the 
possibility of realizing in this world of prosaic ‘‘descrip- 
tion’’ (where everything depends on cause and effect) the 
ideals which make life supremely worth while. Is it pos- 
sible through knowledge of immanent tendencies, social 
trends, and human types; with insight into the virtues 
which men seek at their best, to bring the universal and 
the concrete into closer relation, so as to keep the vision 
while being more practical ? 

How Ideals are Realized.—A moral decision or impetus 
toward the ideal may be said to become effective when a 
concrete deed results in the causal series of events in which 
our organisms move, aS when a man, having entered into 
an agreement, keeps his promise, meets his obligation on 
the day appointed, and so by his example in the community 
embodies an ideal of real influence upon others. It is 
obvious that many ideals remain in the realm of good inten- 
tions, through lack of effort or because of failure to consider 

389 


390 The Moral Life 


precisely how they may be introduced into the actual trend 
of events, under conditions likely to thwart them. There 
are several points of view from which attempts have been 
made to solve this problem. The ethical philosopher is 
apt to approach it without considering the psychological 
elements of the translation of thought into action. Stu- 
dents of human behavior who depend on statistical methods 
as readily neglect the factors of variation which imply 
moral freedom, as if ideals had no power at all. But the 
plain man proceeds on the conviction that ideals have 
greater power than material forces. The problem is to de- 
fine and utilize a moral force in relation to a system of 
physical energies which seem to make moral conduct im- 
possible as a real fact. 

Ideas as Forces.—A typical point of view turns on the 
assumption, seldom analyzed in detail, that ideas are as 
truly forces as those we classify as physical and chemical. 
It appears then to be ideas which direct our desires, set 
free our motor-tensions, release our energies; hence the 
conclusion follows that ideas tend toward realization and 
eventuate in action without further effort on our part. 
‘*Beliefs are rules for action,’’ was the typical generaliza- 
tion of an older psychology; ideas are for the most part 
motor in type, moral ideals first take shape in our thought, 
and tend to express themselves in appropriate conduct. 
Every idea has been said to be ‘‘a tendency and indivisibly 
an action.’’? Ideas are said to realize themselves in the 
measure of their veracity. Practice is theory in action: to 
think is to act. An ideal is not inert, dead, or abstract, 
but exerts a real force and liberating influence. 

Objections to this View.—McConnell, who holds a rival 
theory, objects that this view (1) reverses the true order 
of occurrence by assuming that we first conceive, then sym- 
pathize ; for in reality we feel with others first, then under- 
stand; (2) introduces confusion by regarding intellect as 
a dynamic agency, a motor principle or force; since it is 
feelings which lead to volition, and action is the comple- 


1See McConnell’s summary of Fouillée’s theory of idées-forces, 
The Duty of Altruism, p. 175. 


Moral Forces 391 


tion of the process.? Reason and will are generically dis- 
tinct. We negate many ideas. An ideal is not purely 
intellectual, but is a product of our whole character, espe- 
cially the will. In McConnell’s description, an accepted 
ideal is a force; it is not reason that leads to disinterested 
action, but intellect receives from will its intuitions: will is 
interested, intellect assists; will is primary, intelligence 
accessory. It is therefore a question of ‘‘good”’ and ‘‘bad’’ 
wills. 

Synthetic Action.—The objection to McConnell’s view 
in turn is that it too greatly separates and minimizes the 
intellectual factor, and almost makes will a ‘‘faculty,’’ 
reducing the moral problem to utilizing wills which can 
not be changed. Both will and reason should be taken in 
conjunction. Sometimes the moral decision is almost 
wholly intellectual; hence the conclusions that ‘‘knowledge 
is power,’’ and that ‘‘knowledge is virtue.’’ In some 
people, calm, dispassionate reason predominates; with them 
clearly to see is to begin to act. But other people are 
prevailingly of a will-type—the obstinate will, the explos- 
ive will,? the autocratic will—and reason is subordinated. 
Still others are more centrally of an emotional type, intel- 
lect and will being agents of the prevailing or ruling 
emotions. Actual conduct in any event emerges from the 
inner world as synthetic, in the case, for example, of what 
is called an intuition. Attention plays its part in making 
a state of mind efficacious. Sometimes will gives quiet 
assent, rather than indulging in what we eall effort. We 
inhibit many ideas which might have become effective. 
What finally becomes efficacious is a motive, and motives, 
we have seen, are inner aspects of conduct which are in 
part inseparable from the outer aspects which we call overt 
action. 

To understand why synthetic inner activity, or moral 
decision, is followed by overt action, we need to consider a 
person’s whole nature, including whatever measure of truth 
there is in the proposition that our nature is for the most 


2 Op. cit., p. 179. 
3 See James, Principles of Psychology, Vol. II, p. 537. 


392 . The Moral Life 


part subconscious. To learn why desirable action is de- 
layed, made extremely difficult, or checked altogether, at 
least for years, it is important to understand the truth in 
Freudism concerning repressions in the unconscious. It is 
not ideas only which become ‘‘rules for action,’’ but espe- 
cially desires, more persistently thwarted as they are than 
our ideas. No explanation of efficacious action is to be 
found in the hypothesis that mental states ‘‘attract’’ their 
like, sum themselves up and achieve success in action; for 
it is desire, emotion, or will which supplies the dynamie. 
Nor can we reasonably assume that a moral state, such as 
veracity, has greater power because it embodies a virtue 
which seems strong merely because we approve of it. It 
is out of date to await divine action to reinforce our moral 
states, as if social adjustment had little or nothing to do 
with preparing the way. There is indeed a moral scale, 
and in this scale some virtues, such as temperance, courage, 
are assigned a place such that we anticipate prompt overt 
action. But sufficient attention has not been given to self- 
eontrol on its inner side in relation to psycho-physical 
states resulting in effective action, as when, through appeal 
to an ideal of temperance, a man checks his activities to 
avoid any excess in eating, drinking, working, taking pleas- 
ure, tending to become intense, too emotional, too self- 
restrained; or, when a man rises to the occasion in behalf 
of courage and plunges into heroie action. 

The Causal Series—What is the regulative power of 
human action? How is the transition made from moral 
state to overt act in the external world, under natural law? 
Laing, who has drawn attention to this question anew, 
holds that the solution is to be found in the relation be- 
tween natural processes and human action at the point 
where an act finds place in the causal series.* A human 
being is a natural organism, subject to natural causality, 
internal and external. The expression of a moral state 
turns upon the possibility of controlling natural processes 
through knowledge of the conditions of those processes. 


4B. M. Laing, A Study in Moral Problems, p. 9. 


Moral Forces 393 


The problem is to control the processes so that they shall 
be subservient to the realization and preservation of moral 
values. A natural process can be controlled only by con- 
trolling conditions on which it rests, or causes which set 
it going. Are the controlling factors in human life bio- 
logical and economical? Do moral forces exist? Are 
moral sentiments ‘‘causes’’ which operate after the manner 
of natural forces? If so, psychology should be able to in- 
form us concerning their springs of action. Zeal, earnest- 
ness, enthusiasm would be instances. These, as psychology 
describes them, are like any other qualities Subject to 
natural processes, that is, they are indifferent to values, 
to ‘‘explain’’ them is not to show their moral power. Moral 
forces are not to be explained but rather to be justified. 
Causes serve by way of explanation, values for purposes 
of justification: a purpose, being a result, can not be one 
of the causal factors which bring it about. Thcugh value 
and desire are closely connected, the connection is not a 
causal one, value does not bring desire into play; hence 
the difficulty.® 

Values and Causes.—Butler has shown that conscience 
has authority, but not power. The same is true of values 
in general. Conscience merely sets values before us, values 
are not capable of compelling acceptance; there is nothing 
inherent in nature that will inevitably lead to progress. 
In order that values may be realized causes are necessary, 
and the difficulty is that causes are matters of physics, 
economics, and psychology. Values must be wanted or 
desired: they can be realized through persons. Yet the 
effectiveness of man’s action depends on other forces be- 
yond himself, and upon his knowledge and control of those 
forces. A desire for the good is abstract and general: 
action is conerete and specific. Hence the réle of values 
is to render it possible for the individual to codrdinate 
forces, in view of the fact that values do not compel their 
own selection but are only regulative principles. Laing 
finds a chief source of our difficulty in the fact that we 


Op. cit., p. 69. 


(394 The Moral Life 


have not distinguished between values and causes, also our 
confusion between values and a consciousness of values.® 
It is not value which influences a man’s action: it is 
through his consciousness of value that a man’s action is 
determined. 

Effective Forces——Analyzing the problem from the 
point of view of causes, Laing finds it doubtful whether 
there are certain primary ineradicable psychological forces 
(instincts) which move the individual in a certain direc- 
tion.? It is customary to regard instincts and emotions 
as elementary forces which determine human action. But 
when these forces are actually effective the cause is to be 
sought in the conditions in which the organism is placed. 
Although the appropriate mechanisms may be present, the 
organism is not bound to act in these directions, but must 
receive a stimulus. An impulse is a form of activity, not 
a cause of activity; not a force urging the individual to 
act, but intelligible in relation to the organism in the 
process of acting or reacting, the stimulus being in the 
given situation. The full conditions are required to ex- 
plain the unique features of the reaction and response. 
The same is true of the emotions, or of the inner psy- 
chical complexes which psychoanalysts describe. The 
sources of mental and nervous disorders, for example, are 
found in external conditions. The elementary psychical 
forces which become dangerous if repressed are primary 
forms of reactions to situations. That is, the causes of the 
disorders are in the conflicting appeals made to the indi- 
vidual amid the conditions in which he is placed. Repres- 
Sions occur because certain things a man would do are for- 
bidden by the society in which he lives. 

How Mind is Conditioned.—Again, if we approach the 
problem from the point of view of habit, we find that 
habits derived from instincts are not the only motive power 
of thought and action. It can not be said that man is by 
nature acquisitive. It is once more a question of conditions 
leading to action or reaction on the part of the individual. 


6 Ibid., p. 77. 
7 Ibid., p. 84. 


Moral Forces 395 


The mind is conditioned by non-mental factors; and matter 
is to be regarded as a reservoir of potentialities which, 
given certain suitable conditions, will emerge as actual 
movements of a certain type. The mind is not an inert 
entity to be aroused, but a force analogous to electricity, 
which, released, is known only in the form of activity. We 
should avoid such generalities as the notion that sex-ten- 
dencies are due to the innate ‘‘nature’’ of the organism. 
It is always a question of enlisting or favoring conditions. 
The mind does not even create except by using non-mental 
forces so as to bring about something different: what the 
mind does is to bring conditions or forces into relation, 
thereby enabling them to operate in ways in which they 
do not or might not operate when left to themselves. And 
so selection resolves itself into the appropriation of what 
iss fit: 

Attaining Fitness—We may illustrate Laing’s chicf 
point by reference to well-known facts. If one is weary 
after the exertions of many days, one can not immediately 
spring into efficient action as if the organism were per- 
feetly fit. The results of efforts to recuperate do not ap- 
pear immediately. Change in bodily states are secured by 
conformity to favoring conditions over which we have no 
direct control. Granted a bettered state of the organism, 
one may await the right moment to plunge in and begin 
work anew. The mind functions most freely when the 
organism presents fewest impeding conditions. 

Realizing the power which certain desires, already in 
effective or habitual expression, have over us, we endeavor 
to ‘‘outwit ourselves’’ by putting the organism in relation- 
ships likely to prove favorable, as when a man breaks from 
tempting surroundings and puts himself where social in- 
fluences will help him to gain freedom from adverse habits. 
Our power over the body is dependent on causal sequences 
already in operation and tending to continue in activity in 
the given direction unless other forces are strengthened 
to counteract them. The same is true of power over higher 
psycho-physical states. There are always favorable or 

8 Ibid., p. 108. 


396 The Moral Infe 


unfavorable conditions, even if it seems to be a mere matter 
of ‘‘moods,’’ as with the artist who can not paint when his 
mood is adverse, the writer who sometimes can not write; 
while on other days everything is favorable. 

Favorable Conditions—To make the thorough study 
of moral forces which Laing’s conclusions call for would 
be to inquire into fitting and disturbing conditions all 
along the line of the moral life. For the unity of the good, 
as we have already noted, is something to be created.® It 
emerges as a ‘‘need of action,’’ to be achieved only if two 
conditions are satisfied: (1) there must be nothing inherent 
in the nature of values implying a conflict between them, 
and (2) the various forces must be so related that they will 
. eodperate effectively. For values are in contrast with the 
struggle for existence, and only when values coincide with 
certain conditions fostering their expression are they actu- 
ally effective. When forced into a struggle, as in war, 
people will, if need be, abandon their higher values; hence 
ends that are lowest in the scale of values may drive out 
higher values in process of expression. The values for 
which action is taken in a vigorous way are already op- 
erative in the given situation, as when a person, arriving 
at the front, sees that every interest whatever must be 
subordinated to the need of the hour. 

To make an ideal effective then is to organize it in rela- 
tion to the conerete situation which confronts us, other- 
wise it will remain purely general. It is the psycho- 
physical individual who acts as a cause, not the value.?° 
In the light of values one may indeed select objects at 
which to aim so as to bring values into expression, through 
the interaction of the organism with the environment. If 
our actions are effective, the reason is to be found in the 
accompanying conditions. In the social conditions in which 
we find ourselves, for instance, struggles are in process; 
and we may participate or contend against actual processes 
Men will struggle for primary ends of action, pertaining 
to existence and the means of sustaining it, as they will 


9 Ibid., p. 138. 
10 Ibid., p. 75. 


Moral Forces 397 


not for higher values, on which their natural existence 
does not depend. But if the conditions of physical and 
economic welfare are first provided, then indeed it may be 
possible to secure action in favor of higher values. 

Effective Deeds.—Hence to begin aright, so Laing 
maintains, would be to consider what physical and eco- 
nomic factors have brought about the given social situa- 
tion which should be changed. Laing holds unqualifiedly 
that morality rests on conditions, for instanee, when the 
state of affairs is such as to provoke a revolt, or when 
poverty affords a motive for philanthropy. The motive 
then is ‘‘objective’’; it is not subjective because enter- 
tained by an individual. That is, the ‘‘reason’’ is based 
on an objective situation, the stimulus comes from the con- 
ditions; we can not grasp the tendency to action apart from 
the given situation. Thus when a man tells a lie or breaks 
a promise, the motive is in the conditions.+ Moral deeds 
are not only relative to situations, but to what is possible 
in the given situations. The assumed universality of ac- 
tion is due to our idea that all men would be likely to act 
that way; but this is improbable. Our control of condi- 
tions is so far imperfect as to render it impossible to 
formulate general rules. Many of our ideals are ‘‘imprac- 
ticable’’ because we have not based them on recognition of 
the causes or conditions under which they might be carried 
out. Self-sacrifice, if really needed, is due to the fact that 
morality is imperfectly realized: if it has any value at 
all, it lies in what is actually accomplished. It would be 
absurd to fall back on our faith in the virtues as ‘‘some- 
how’’ effective because they are so worthy. So, too, our 
efforts fail when we put reliance on some mystic power of 
reason or will.}? 

We uncritically assume that the defects of our action 
are due to the cleavage in our nature, to the presence of 
desires; but we can not will unless we desire, will is a 
stage in the process of desire: neither reason nor will, nor 
even desire is arbiter alone, although desirability is one 


11 Ibid., p. 179. 
12 [bid., p. 203. 


398 The Moral Infe 


criterion. It would be an over-simplification of the real 
to select one desirable thing. We face the problem of 
divergence between the desired and the desirable, owing to 
the complexity of things and of the causal series. Natural 
forees operate through the organism and find continuation 
beyond it, and if the organism is not to be thrown into 
disorder these forces must be controlled before the organ- 
ism is influenced. The only solution of the problems 
of freedom is by control of the conditions which make for 
freedom; mere will can effect nothing, as natural conditions 
are not controlled by a will, and natural conditions de- 
termine human action. Moral perfection itself is a ques- 
tion of controlling environment through knowledge of the 
factors affecting human action. Hence Laing holds that 
the ideal life would be one in which all desirable things 
would continually be realized, so that no man would have 
any motive for doing anything undesirable. 

Moral Failures.—Doubtless there is much evidence for 
all these contentions. We have here an explanation in 
part of the moral failures of the ages. Moral leaders have 
devoted unlimited time and energy to eulogizing the virtu- 
ous life, as the disciples of peace praised peace before the 
World War, instead of engaging in persistent effort to dis- 
cover and carry into execution ‘‘a moral equivalent for 
war,’’ instead of organizing moral forces so as to make 
them effective among nations. So, too, the individual has 
contemplated ideals without considering the conditions 
which render their realization possible. It is indeed true, 
as Laing insists, that we need not wait for an inner change 
of will on the part of mankind; but we should set about 
the discovery of the conditions on which the realization of 
values depends, and having acquired the knowledge con- 
struct the mechanism to carry into effect what we know.1* 
To the extent that the moral life rests on mechanisms and 
natural processes, it is imperative to consider whether 
mechanisms and natural processes are being utilized to 
promote morality. 


13 Ibid., p. 240. 
14 Ibid., p. 255. 


Moral Forces 399 


Higher Values as Forces.—Yet to stop where Laing 
stops, as vitally important as his contentions may be, would 
not be to take all the factors of moral success into account. 
Laing emphasizes sensibility rather than reason, and ap- 
proaches the moral situation from without rather than 
from within. What is needed is an equally searching in- 
quiry into the inner conditions which make virtue effect- 
ive. The power of moral ideals does not consist solely in 
that phase of values which can be realized through the 
organism so far as environmental conditions permit. Moral 
ideals have inspired and moral leaders have quickened 
people far beyond actual attainments. An ideal has power 
in its own sphere. It draws or uplifts the self, and the 
self may become identified in spirit with an ideal which 
can not by any means be realized except in moderate degree 
during a life-time. Ideals have contemplative value. 
There are values in the life of reason, the love of the Beau- 
tiful and the Good which surpass any creative production 
that can be brought forth in a given period. Indeed, ideals 
in Plato’s sense of the term constitute a realm of eternal 
values as the one end really worth all our endeavors. So, 
too, the original Christianity may be said to have exercised 
its power in a sphere vastly great in comparison with 
man’s meager attainments in living by the teaching of the 
Gospels. Man’s greater attainments may result, not so - 
much from direct effort to carry out ideals now, but as a 
later consequence of the identification he has made between 
his selfhood and the ideal, in so far as he has willed to 
realize the ideal, while mindful of the fact that life ac- 
complishes its ends in its own way, and in its own time, 

The Power of Ideals.—Ideals have two aspects: (1) 
an ideal may be an incentive to action now, implying some- 
thing to be done forthwith, as Laing suggests, a stimulus 
to work, to select fitting conditions; changes in habits and 
methods may be imperative, also more persistent effort, 
greater thoughtfulness in choosing conditions favorable to 
the realization of a worthy universe of desire; hence alert- 
ness in taking opportunities may be called for, wiser adap- 
tation to circumstances, more self-control; but (2) an ideal 


4.00 The Moral Infe 


‘may also be a vision of a far-off goal to be approximated, 
such as the command to be perfect, to live the abundant 
life; it may bring an uplift of the heart, an inspiration to 
the spirit; as an object of repeated contemplation, quick- 
ening thought at its best, enlisting creative reason; it may 
be efficacious in high degree. 

The Value of Inner Peace.—An ideal of poise, or inner 
peace has power over the mind as an objective to work for 
steadily, day by day, and year by year. With the growth 
of serenity in meeting the vicissitudes of life, there is in- 
erease of inner control. This inner control in turn finds 
expression in a mode of life in correspondence with it, as 
we note in marked degree in the case of Quakers and others 
who have long cultivated the gentler virtues; who have 
checked all coarser emotions, such as jealousy, anger, hatred. 
Granted this inner control, whether fostered as the Stoics 
of old cultivated equanimity, or as the Quakers increase 
it by worshiping in silence, listening to and obeying the 
inner guidance; there result changes never consciously 
sought. One whose inner life is thus serene is, of course, 
free from the vexations which other people permit, far 
more free from disturbing nervous states and their ac- 
companying bodily responses; hence, at need, there is 
greater power in reserve to insure the triumph of the 
higher resistance, and efficacious expression of the gentler 
virtues. The greater power is attributable to the ideal, the 
lesser to the harmonious mental states which. reinforce 
equanimity as a habit. It is not then a question of wait- 
ing, with those who put stress on external situations, for 
conditions favorable to the growth of serenity: the devotee 
of the quieter values of the serene life cultivates composure 
as a habit so that, when social situations occur, he will 
be able to meet them with that quietness or confidence 
which is strength. 

Ideal Attitudes.—A direction of mind toward an ideal 
becomes in time a habit, that is, an attitude, attitudes in- 
erease in power and become efficacious, as we note in the 
Quaker’s attitude toward war. An ideal may be merely 
a thought at first, an affirmation, for instance, that war 


Moral Forces 401 


shall cease. But anon an opportunity occurs to test one’s 
faith, and the ideal is vigorously adopted as a rule for 
action then and there. 

Again, experience leads us to distinguish between mental 
levels. On the lowest level, one is virtually a prisoner of 
bodily conditions or passing states, as when a man is swept 
along by impulse to a vicious deed. A little higher up, 
one is mostly enveloped by awareness of processes, as when 
illness or indigestion impedes the flow of thought. Axlittle 
higher still, one is shut in at intervals, with occasional 
breaks in the clouds, in the moods suggestive of doubt, 
pessimism or despair. Steadily to ascend is to have an in- 
creasing sense of self-possession, control, freedom, with 
visions of the goal to be won. If we are most free from 
Impeding states either when giving ourselves most fully 
to self-forgetting service for others or when doing what we 
eall creative work which becomes so absorbing that we have 
practically no awareness of processes, or even of favorable 
conditions, an ideal may be said to have greatest power on 
the level of freest activity. 

Ideals as Objectives.—In the world of successful action, 
people give themselves far more fully to their objectives 
than to the means essential to the end. It is the conviction 
that the end must be gained which sets free the energies 
which should be devoted to studying out the necessary con- 
ditions. We contemplate for years objectives which we 
are determined to realize. We venture to dream, even 
about that which is supposedly ‘‘too good to be true.’’ We 
make our ideals more explicit as, year by year, we learn 
the lessons of failure. The sculptor sees as in a vision the 
beautiful figure he is to bring out of marble, the architect 
sees the completed structure he is about to build; the rail- 
road president envisages the vast improvement to be made 
in the development of his great system, as in the ease of 
Mr. Cassatt, coming home from Europe with a vision of a 
magnificent station in New York City, with a tunnel under 
the Hudson River. What seems utterly impractical or 
even impossible at first becomes a realized dream a few 
years later. Concentration of effort toward the goal is 


402 The Moral Infe 


essential to success, even in the most external field. It is 
a characteristic of virtue, notably in the case of courage, 
to make the venture even where everything seems antago- 
nistic, and the project doomed to failure. From the moral 
point of view there is a great advantage in regarding the 
organism as an instrument for the realization of ideals, 
instead of so emphasizing conditions that one loses heart 
amidst an endless round of relativities. 

An ideal of work in the world in adaptation to present 
conditions, expressive of common sense in meeting adversi- 
ties, routine, economic necessities, is compatible with an 
ideal outlook on a higher level toward the eternal verities 
which are for the most part independent of transient con- 
ditions. The two ideal ventures sometimes coincide in a 
remarkable way, as in the ease of the soldier who does his 
duty with exceptional efficiency when in action, but who 
also leaps forward at a bound in allegiance to ‘‘first and 
last things.’’ Meanwhile, the chaplain who does not fight, 
and the Quaker who will not fight, exemplify moral force 
in another way, no less impressive. There are always 
values worth fighting for in some kind of way, howbeit in 
protest against all fighting with weapons or with a mili- 
tant tongue. Too much attention has been given to the 
martial virtues of the overt type, to the neglect of highly 
organized serenity and the power it utilizes. 

Virtues as Forces.—All the virtues we have been con- 
sidering in the foregoing chapters are moral forees. Moral 
force is required to be patient, considerate, gentle, tem- 
perate or well-balanced, as surely as in the effort to be 
courageous, just in all one’s dealings, honest even when 
it is the custom to defraud, or in the determination to 
speak the truth when frankness is unpopular. The 
power enlisted in the endeavor to attain inner control is 
available for use in overt action. The man of composure 
and marked inner control is a power as he moves about 
among his fellows. The master man in any field of action 
is also in considerable measure master of his inner life. 

The power which any virtue has in the scale depends 
then to some extent on the recognition we give to it, and 


Moral Forces 403 


there has been a tendency to over-emphasize virtues which 
foster economic necessities, to the neglect of the less ap- 
parent virtues without which material success is of slight 
avail. Nineteen centuries of interest in Christianity have 
hardly sufficed to show the real force of the virtues signal- 
ized by the Sermon on the Mount. The ethics of hedonism 
and the ethics of Hercules have had more than abundant 
recognition. The superman has exercised his power in full 
vigor. But even the Germans, utterly declining to azcept 
responsibility for the World War or to admit defeat, gave 
heartiest recognition to the succoring Quakers, with their 
relief forces, and admitted them into the country when ad- 
mission was refused to every other social group. The 
Quakers won their laurels solely by unostentatious deeds 
of brotherly sympathy and love. 

Efficacious Virtue.—What is called for then is recogni- 
tion of the great diversity in expression of the virtues, 
which range from the contemplative virtues, encouraged 
without any regard for possibilities of reforming the world 
on the outside, to virtues essential to social justice and 
largely dependent on economie evolution. The first fact 
to note is that, as moral forces have no independent power 
of attracting conditions favorable to their realization, as 
a given virtue, such as self-sacrifice, carries no guarantee 
that it must succeed, any virtue that is to be made effica- 
cious must be brought into relation with actual processes. 
This is as true of virtues pertaining especially to the inner 
life as of admittedly social virtues. A man begins to 
ground an ideal in his conduct when he has interest enough 
to live by it, by conquering habits within or tendencies 
toward customs without. It is easy to return blow for 
blow, to exact an eye for an eye; but inner resistance is 
required to return good for evil, love for hate. A primary 
difficulty with many men is that they have not even tried 
the higher resistance; have not learned, with Buddha, that 
‘thatred does not cease by hatred, but by love.’’ What 
might result in the world by devotion to an unpopular 
moral ideal is best shown by the conduct of those who, like 
the Quakers, are willing to stand by a conviction without 


404 The Moral Infe 


compromise in any situation. To ground an ideal in con- 
duct already in process is indeed uncompromisingly to 
cultivate the values which are most sharply contrasted with 
the individual and social states to be driven out. Psycho- 
logically, this involves the shifting of attention, for ex- 
ample, from an activity tending toward an einotion of 
anger to a sentiment of forgiveness, love, or peace. Spirit- 
ually, it means serving a higher master; since one can not 
serve two at a time. Morally, it means a different integra- 
tion, concentration on a higher ideal. Underlying any 
such inner change is the question of possessing sufficient 
inner control to make it. He who really wishes to succeed, 
even when the odds appear to be against him, ean ac- 
complish his purpose by studiously cultivating the inner 
and outer conditions which will yield the desired results 
in time. 

Moral Education.—All our wiser educational and re- 
ligious methods proceed on this basis. We no longer ex- 
pect miracles or sudden conversions. We do not wait till 
all the old buildings are torn down, till new equipment is 
installed, and better teachers are trained: we depend on 
higher environmental influences, the disclosure of oppor- 
tunities, the power of example, the working together of 
intellectual, cultural, moral, and religious forces toward a 
synthetic end. The World War did not shake the faith 
of men in organized effort of this sort. It showed that 
we had not taught the youth of the nation to carry out 
this effort in the moral sphere as effectively as we have 
taught them to acquire mechanisms for economic efficiency. 
Moral sentiments can as reasonably be called forces as be- 
fore. But the war taught us that the development of mech- 
anisms had not been psychologically understood. We had 
been putting our faith in generalities, on the supposition 
that our natures somehow exercised a subtle power of selec- 
tion and would see to it that the good will should triumph. 
Now that we have learned that the bodily organism as 
readily obeys one dominant mental state as another, we 
realize that we must be far more energetic in selecting a 
worthy universe of desire. 


Moral Forces 405 


Moral Mechanisms.—By a ‘‘mechanism’’ as the term 
is above used, we mean a habit or group of habits which 
make virtue efficient, establish a balance of power in its 
favor. Self-control as a habit of life fostering composure, 
moderation, patience, skill, calmness of judgment, wisdom 
in selecting means to ends is a mechanism. The higher 
resistance practiced by the Quaker as a regular mode of 
life is a mechanism. Such a mechanism may be said to 
function automatically. A mechanism is not static, kut is 
ealled into being by a purpose higher in type than the 
habits which constitute it. It belongs in the causal series 
of experiences or deeds in the individual’s life, because to 
acquire it the individual has put himself through training, 
has exercised inhibition, as when one checks an impulse to 
become angry, to strike back. Inhibition is always essen- 
tial to control. The man who is outstanding because of 
his composure is notable in the community for what he 
does not do, as well as for what he actually does. He has 
the courage to believe that many of the forces of human 
nature which the majority have given up as beyond our 
control can actually be controlled. His example shows us 
that no man knows what passions can be mastered until 
he has tried. It also shows that very much more depends 
upon the use we make of our powers than upon the native 
trends, for example, various tendencies toward excess. For 
man grows strong by what he overcomes. The one who 
finds himself in urgent need of poise, inner peace, or com- 
posure may be brought through experience to appreciate, 
to strive for, and to maintain it as no naturally placid 
person is ever likely to value it. We submit then the con- 
clusion that virtue as a force begins with the individual, 
that both knowledge and effort are required, that the means 
for acquiring the appropriate mechanisms are at hand, and 
that every man who begins with himself in this funda- 
mentally searching way is preparing to solve the greater 
problem of making moral forces efficacious, as the great- 
est forces employed by the community, 


406 The Moral Life 


REFERENCES 


McConne tt, R. M., The Duty of Altruism, 1910. 

Lana, B. M., A Study in Moral Problems, 1922. 

JAMES, W., Principles of Psychology, 1890, Vol. I, p. 447, foll. 

DEWEY AND Turts, Ethics, Chaps. XXIV, XXV. 

Eiuiwoop, C. A., Christianity and Social Science, 1923, Chap. VII. 

Emerson, R. W., Essays, First Series, Second Series; The Con- 
duct of Life. 


CHAPTER XXYV, 
MORAL PROBLEMS 


social Consciousness.—We have seen that as soziety 
consists of individuals, each of whom is a conscious being: 
with varied interests and diverse capacities, in a measure 
self-directed, self-determining and free, what is called 
social consciousness is really the awareness of the indi- 
vidual of his relationships with his fellows. All these re- 
lationships—for mutual protection, by aid of custom, law, 
morality, religion—involve the individual’s consciousness 
of society ; human beings interact, but they are also aware 
of interacting. Consciousness is indeed more fundamental 
so far as moral relationships are concerned than action, 
although conduct is in every sense of the word an active 
term. Society, whether in large groups or small, is con- 
stituted by mutual understanding, and this understand- 
ing becomes more explicitly self-conscious to the degree 
that it is ethical. There is tacit agreement, there are un- 
written laws, a common interest or purpose, for example, 
among educational groups, and any s3eial situation with 
regard to the conduct of one’s associates is a conscious 
situation. Education at its best is a matter of contact with 
other minds, the whole process of culture and civilization 
is in essence increasing consciousness in the individual 
and the race. 

The Effect of Consciousness.—The first fact to note 
with special emphasis is that consciousness makes a differ- 
ence, and the attitude of the individual towards his group, 
also his conduct in relation to it, changes with the changes 
in his consciousness. Mutual adjustment is fostered by 
mutual understanding. So in larger groups there may be 
what Fite calls ‘‘a system of personal ends determined in 

1 Cf, Fite, Indwidualism, 1911, p. 105. 

407 


4.08 The Moral Life 


mutual freedom and agreement.’’? Social action by mutual 
agreement becomes progressively ethical through fellow- 
ship in mutual interests and purposes. The competition 
which keeps men apart in the economic world gives place 
to the intellectual rivalry of the friendly group where each 
participant offers those ideas which he can best contribute. 
The differences which keep people apart so long, as far as 
instrumental values are concerned, become incentives to 
draw them together in such mutuality ; and so ‘‘your fellow 
by his very difference opens the way to a larger expansion 
of yourself.’’ 

The Larger Self-consciousness.—This truth wholly off- 
sets the objection sometimes raised against the ethical ideal 
of self-realization. Rogers insists that ‘‘self-realization 1s 
after all self-centered, and therefore petty when we put 
it alongside the bigger world.’’ He holds that the em- 
phasis falls on self, where it should be a matter of a con- 
trolling interest or task.2 But it is precisely this purpose 
uniting us with our fellows in things worth doing which 
constitutes self-realization in the larger sense for which we 
have pleaded. ‘‘Each of us is aware of an immensely more 
comprehensive self than he is able to express in overt ac- 
tivity.’’+ It is this larger or social consciousness which 
we begin to draw upon in the quickening groups of which 
we find ourselves parts. Since ‘‘the capacity for self- 
realization is limited by the narrowness of our attention,’’ 
we need those contacts which will rouse us into larger 
moral responsiveness. As one responds to the work of art 
through the awakening of the artist in one’s self, so one 
responds to the moral spirit in a group where ethical issues 
are brought to the fore. The individual, becoming aware 
of the issues which his fellow members are discussing, 
makes the implied ethical principles his own and awakens 
to greater responsibility. In awakening to moral self-con- 
sciousness the individual becomes more self-regarding, but 
this apparent centering of the issues about the self is rela- 


2 Op. cit., p. 112. 
3 The Theory of Ethics, pp. 134, 136. 
4 Fite, op. ctt., p. 125. 


Moral Problems 409 


tive to the profounder discovery of what Professor Palmer 
calls ‘‘the conjunct self.’’ 

The Honor System.—In the adoption of the honor sys- 
tem in colleges where student government has been in- 
augurated, we have an excellent illustration of this advance 
from the less conscious, the less moral to the more ex- 
plicitly moral; and, with the increase of response to an 
ethical ideal, an enlargement of self-consciousness. In the 
honor system, the appeal to the individual conscience is 
substituted in large part for a set of rules imposed by 
those in authority, and enforced by reprimands and pen- 
alties. Rules are found necessary in an order of society 
where conscience is only slightly awakened. When put 
upon his honor the individual accepts responsibility and 
endeavors to do right without being watched, reminded, or 
reproved. He is appealed to as a person, no longer a mere 
child, careless and unwitting, as a person who is so far 
awake to the need for codperation as to be ready volun- 
tarily to do his part in sustaining the good of the whole. 
An appeal to honor is an appeal to manliness, uprightness, 
integrity. Although under the honor system all, including 
members of the student government, are still under rules 
and are treated alike, the rules are drawn up in coopera: 
tion, subject both to advice from administrative officers 
and to discussion on the part of the students themselves. 
The college seniors who are more mature in thoughtfulness, 
with greater self-control, more discretion than others, have 
a distinct advantage in administrative leadership; since, 
with keen appreciation of the care-free and pleasure-loving 
tendencies of youth, they can apply ethical principles more 
concretely and practically than many of their elders, who, 
unluckily, have not preserved freshness of spirit or spon- 
taneity. 

Misdemeanors.—Some people readily respond to the 
appeal to be more nearly a law unto themselves. The 
problem is to arouse those members of a group, in college, 
in business, in the world at large, who scout the ideal of 
moral ecodperation. Shall the upholder of the honor sys- 
tem report the lapses from what is right for the community 


410 The Moral Lrfe 


on the part of those who break the community’s written 
or unwritten rules? That would be to put the offenders 
on a lower level of moral conduct, where enforeed rules 
are made painfully apparent. Some way must be found 
to encourage the offender to report his own misdeeds, and 
by reporting them to signify his willingness to cooperate 
in the future. It is still a problem to know how to appeal 
to those who lag behind in matters of conscience, and the 
problem must be worked out to its full solution by keeping 
in sympathetic touch.with those who most need to be 
quickened, by saying the wise word at the fitting time. For 
all members of the community it is a question of advance 
beyond individual interpretation of rules involving com- 
promises or opportunities for a moral lapse from the stand- 
ard or ideal put before the group. The ideal involves 
recognition of principles which are for the good of all, and 
which a few at least in the group would sustain even if 
there were no rules. And for all there is steady progress 
toward freedom. No one likes to feel that he is being watched 
in class-room or dormitory, in office or salesroom, on the 
Suspicion that he may be dishonest. To be free from the 
unpleasant consciousness that spies may be present, that 
proctors are necessary, that promises not to cheat must be 
exacted, the individual should resolve tu do what is right 
because tt is right, because it is not only best for the com- 
munity which is striving to be ethical, but implies moral 
integrity on the part of each member of the group. One 
who appreciates the honor system is eager to reach the 
stage of moral development where he will no longer have 
any misdemeanors to report. He can then dismiss all 
unpleasant consciousness in the matter, and give himself 
more fully to his education, and to his purpose in life. 
Each one who takes the matter into his own hands, who 
no longer needs rules drawn up by others, who has no fear 
of incurring reprimands from any one in authority, is 
ready to do his part in the administration of the rules still 
needed by some who are less awakened. Thus by setting 
the example for others, he does his part in bringing society 
nearer the day when every man shall live by law and order. 


Moral Problems All 


Consistency as a Test.—Should I always give expression 
to virtue in the same way? Ought I, for example, always 
to tell the truth? Two considerations guide us here. I 
ought indeed always to be truthful, since this is essential 
to my moral integrity. But I ought also to take into con- 
sideration the greater good. If to save a life, preserve a 
woman’s honor or reputation, or to save property of direct 
value in the greater interests of life, I am minded to mis- 
lead the probable wrong-doer, then this act is right, it 
implies a greater good than would be mere consistency in 
my utterances. By deceiving the would-be murderer, 
slanderer or thief, I am not lowering my moral standard. 
I still prefer truthfulness to lying. My act was for an- 
other’s personal good. In so acting I am still true to 
my ideal: in the case of two alternatives, I ought always 
to choose the one which I judge to be higher. 

Compromises.—Is it permissible, in order to avoid 
carrying any tendency or interest to excess, to indulge in 
a vice or two? For instance, gambling, which has now 
found its way into more cultural circles. There is one 
moralist at least who holds that the cause of morality has 
‘‘sometimes suffered from the disposition to take too high 
a moral tone about such a vice as that of gambling, and to 
overwhelm it with emotional reproaches. The man who 
likes to risk a little money for the fun of the thing feels 
instinctively that this is overcharged, and he is apt in con- 
sequence to react against it. It is safer, and often more 
effective, to recognize gambling as primarily a business 
vice, and to attack the gambler because he is a fool rather 
than because he is a villain; though even here a sense of 
proportion ought to hold. Provided a man risks only what 
he can easily afford, is scrupulous to see that no one else, 
either, is encouraged to risk more than he ought, and is 
successful in keeping the practice outside of working hours 
as a pastime pure and simple, gambling seems an amuse- 
ment at least as harmless as some others in better repute. 
The difficulty, however, lies in keeping it thus within 
bounds. The gambling spirit needs no special encourage- 
ment to become a mental habit, for it is part of that origi- 


412 The Moral L1fe 


nal lack of codrdination and persistency in human nature 
which every consideration of common sense urges us to 
overcome.’’ ° 

Smoking and Selfishness.—How then shall one indulge 
to the extent of a harmless diversion without permitting 
this highly dangerous vice to exceed the limits of a mere 
diversion? Some take the attitude that one should not 
counsel others to be any more moral in overt conduct than 
one chances to be one’s self: every man has his vice, why 
expect people to be any better? For instance, most men 
smoke, why should one object to smoking on the part of 
either youth or man? Whatever might be said on hygienic 
grounds, the question becomes ethical by the fact that 
smoking readily fosters selfishness among some men. A 
man will be courteous in every respect ealled for by good 
breeding, but when the time comes for smoking, it matters 
not whether ladies are present, or whether there are men 
present who dislike tobacco smoke, he will indulge, perhaps 
with a preliminary struggle to consider others first. 
Women, emulating men, and claiming the right to do what 
men do, have recently contended that they should smoke 
too. But how horrified some men and many women have 
been! If compromises are permissible, so the argument 
seems to run, why should not every man and woman com- 
promise? On the other hand it is contended that unless 
our elders of both sexes refrain, that our youth may not 
become sensuous pleasure-lovers, we can not expect the 
youth to follow. If people in authority indulge in precisely 
the vice that is forbidden, for instance, smoking in a girl’s 
college, why then should others be kept in subjection to 
rules against smoking? If all the army officers gamble, 
how shall you enforce a rule against gambling among pri- 
vates? Is a man able to indulge in his cigar or pipe at 
home and be as considerate of his wife and children as 
if he did not smoke? That is a moral question for the 
individual to decide. 

Serving One Master.—Psychologically speaking, a com- 
promise is highly dangerous. All unfortunate habits begin 

5 Rogers, The Theory of Ethics, p. 169. 


Moral Problems 413 


in a small way—as when one is urged to take his first 
drink of intoxicants, to make up a hand at table when a 
player is lacking, to smoke his first cigarette, keep the 
first money not rightfully his own, indulge in misrepre- 
sentation for business reasons, or to cheat in college on 
the ground that one probably will not be caught. The 
crucial moment is in the initial stage of action, when we 
have control over our conduct. The time to object is on 
the first occasion. Ethically speaking, a comprom’se is 
more serious still. For it involves the attempt to serve 
two masters. It is easy indeed by the aid of a compromise 
to slip into selfishness as one’s master. It is difficult to 
know just when to stop, lest the harmless indulgence of 
today become the habit of tomorrow, and eventually become 
as fixed as the habit of tea or coffee-drinking upon people 
who think they can not go through a day without the 
one or the other, or both. In our reaction against the 
Puritanism which gave us some of our noblest moral ideals, 
we tend toward the other extreme today. 

Lawlessness.—There are several sources of lawlessness. 
It may be an outcropping of youthful opposition to re- 
straints and regulations, mostly temporary, due to tran- 
sient self-assertion in capricious forms. It may be a re- 
action against paternalism in government, intensified wi . 
increase in the number of laws, and not to be overcome 
by passing more laws. The individual resents infringe- 
ments on what he takes to be his private rights, for ex- 
ample, in drinking what he prefers. It may be a natural 
reaction from excessive regulation in war-time, and is 
likely to wane in a few years. But it imereases with 
the number of mechanical inventions enabling the offenders 
to speed away. lLawlessness has always been a problem. 
It has to be met with much considerateness; since most 
offenders are youthful, or began in youth to be offenders 
and later turned against society. It is to be met by edu- 
cation, improvements in our prison-system, in the admin- 
istration of justice; and by substituting moral reason for 
the mere authority of institutions. 

Christ in Business—Commenting on the failure of a 


414 The Moral Life 


business man who ‘‘preached a little on the side’’ and had 
much to say about the iniquity of modern commercial 
methods, in connection with his own effort to introduce 
Christianity into business, a correspondent of the Wash- 
wgton Star maintains that business, ‘‘as the day’s work 
goes, is not so crooked as the crooks make it out to be. 
Business is but one of the activities of men, and mankind 
keeps its lines of progress fairly straight. Business is as 
clean as the home or the school, or the church or the court- 
house. Men are as decent in one relation as in others. 
And Christ is about as much in business as he is in the 
church or the school or the home. The Golden Rule is 
the basic philosophy of our Christian civilization. There 
are no perfect men, and no perfect institutions, but man 
and his ordinary activities run along about 70 per cent 
good and the rest fairly good.’’ 

Work.—The objections to work in our day spring from 
dissatisfactions with the present industrial system, and 
turn upon the view that the primary trouble is with the 
environment, that is, the economic order. From an ethical 
point of view, interest centers in craftsmanship, in doing 
a piece of work as well as it can be done for the sake 
of ideal ends, as if a master craftsman were looking on. 
The values of work in their influence on character, and 
the joys of work need not be disparaged, even though we 
are just now protesting against certain kinds of work and 
the conditions under which such work is done. Work is 
with the head as well as with the hands. Work is moral. 
By its aid we break through the inertias of the organism, 
overcome our selfishness, and begin to serve. Through 
it we may gain self-expression, increasing freedom in the 
inner life. But through mistaken ideas of self-sacrifice, 
allegiance to materialistic standards, and exacting labor- 
unions one may subordinate the soul. And so the problem 
is to arouse interest once more in the moral values of 
work, by directing attention to the inner life as intrinsic 
in value. 

Arousing the Moral Will.—It can not truly be said that 
we lack knowledge of the principles and methods by which 


Moral Problems 415 


the troubles that beset us can be overcome. It would be 
sheer evasion in these days to insist that it is a question 
of the mystery of evil or the unregeneracy of human nature. 
We know, for instance, what codperation would accom- 
plish, for we have seen it tried out; but many of us do not 
wish to try it. We know the principle that all men are 
brothers, but some of us do not care to regard them so. 
We know the superiority of Christian precepts which the 
few have sincerely lived by, for example, the Quakers. We 
might put ethics above politics, and revive the political 
ideal of Aristotle; but we allow politicians to play the 
game, while men of high principle refrain from taking 
public office. We could put ethical principles above the 
strife for private gain, and still acquire all that is needed 
for a good living. 

The problem, when we meet individuals to whom we 
might appeal to advance in their morality, is to arouse 
the moral will. The problem has sometimes been given 
up as too difficult, even by clergymen, either because the 
will is said to be unregenerate or because the will is iden- 
tified with ‘‘will-power’’ which we might exert but do 
not. But it should be noted once more that moral will is 
not separable from moral reason. Knowledge is to a large 
extent virtue, and with increase of knowledge virtue is 
likely to come. It is a question of appealing to the under- 
standing and the affections, not directly to the will. 

What is the situation with you and me, when we do not 
rouse into action as we should? Sometimes it is a matter 
of inertia, and this is partly physical and may be due to 
excessive fatigue; it may call for increased health and 
strength. It is also in part psychical, and we need to re- 
mind ourselves that in all undertakings persistence or 
concentration of effort is needed to press through the first 
difficulties. Our habits are acquired by pushing through 
the psycho-physical inertias. The egoistic love of pleasure 
is also a factor in our inertias. Oftentimes we much prefer 
to enjoy rather than to exert ourselves. We need to learn 
the greater values of higher pleasures and of happiness, 
compatible as they are with systematic effort. There isneed 


416 The Moral Ivfe 


of knowledge of the so-called sense of effort, which is in 
part a question of renewing ideals day by day. Will is 
not a force to exert, as if it were latent and needed to be 
brought out of its place of hiding. Attention is will. 
Thought is will. When reason is appealed to and won, 
will insensibly follows. When the heart is touched, sep- 
arate acts of will are not required. If then you would 
appeal to a man, first learn what his active interests are, 
what his ruling passion is, what is his prevailing love. 
Seek to win him by appealing to his understanding heart. 
The basic urges of human nature will remain the same, but 
these may be enlisted in progressively higher directions. 
What then is the next step for a man to take in his indi- 
vidual development? Where does he stand? What is he 
trying to be? Just where does he need wise counsel? Learn 
this, and then advise him accordingly. 

The Problem of Duality of Self—No argument is 
needed to show that ‘‘a double-minded man is unstable in 
all his ways.’’ It is morally true that no man ean serve 
two masters: but what if the duality be involuntary, due 
to a conflict which is misunderstood? Must the problem 
be left for religion to solve, with its influences making for 
regeneration? Our study has led to the conclusion that 
the moral situation is far more promising than it was when 
the term selfishness was used as a mere generality, when 
egoism was too sharply distinguished from altruism. Since 
moral reform begins at home in the inner life of each 
individual, it is a question of the specific duality to be 
known and overcome; the undesirable traits or tendencies, 
and the sort of conduct to be substituted for those modes 
of expression which yield discord. 

It is far too general to insist that there is a conflict be- 
tween the will (in general) and a warring element (in 
general) in one’s nature so that when we would do good 
evil is present with us. To classify the warring element 
as due to ‘‘sin’’ is to put off the day of the needed psycho- 
logical analysis. The so-called ‘‘carnal’’ mind has ceased 
to be a generality, in the light of modern knowledge of 
our desires, the objects toward which they strive, the 


Moral Problems 417 


opportunity that is ours to utilize the primal urges of our 
nature, with the hope of remaking the self.° So too the 
‘‘mind of Christ’’ which is to be renewed each day has 
taken on more definite meaning with insight into values 
coordinated in a scale.7 We no longer anticipate sudden 
conversions as if by miracle, but put our faith in the well- 
nigh insensible changes by which the self advances towards 
unity or consistency; and the more determinate our pur- 
pose the less time we need spend analyzing our duatities. 

sources of Duality.—The answer given by certain stu- 
dents of Paul’s problem today is that man finds himself 
doing what he hates despite his will, because so large a 
part of his nature is subconscious, not yet understood. 
There is no hostile element by itself. Instead, there are 
various tendencies, emotional complexes, unrealized abil- 
ities and activities still in process, and these differ with 
the individual. It is not then primarily a question of the 
flesh, of our animal inheritance through evolution, of any 
given instinct alone, or even of the will apart from its 
sources in relation to sin or evil; but a problem of our 
whole deeper self understood in the light of the present 
stage of its development. The solution of the problem is 
to be found by establishing our aspirations in the concrete 
deeds of daily life, in our natural selfhood, no longer dis- 
paraged, as if “‘natural goodness’’ bore no relation to spir- 
itual goodness. We must first understand if we would 
enlist or sublimate our tendencies, and overcome all inter- 
ference with moral health and spiritual progress. 

The Content of Mental Life—What then is it in us 
that needs to be coordinated? Our mental life consists in 
part of desires more or less in conflict, and needing organi- 
zation in an eligible universe of desire; emotions, which 
range all the way from the coarser and more selfish angers, 
hates, jealousies, envies, to the refined moral and spiritual 
sentiments which culminate in love at its best and may 
be taken as a standard; instinctive dispositions which we 
have habitually used according to our view or attitude 


6 Cf. Hocking, Human Nature and its Remaking, p. 26. 
7 Dresser, Psychology in Theory and Application, p. 689. 


418 The Moral Life 


toward life; and feelings of pleasure and pain. Over 
against these commingling activities, stands the intellect 
with its cool scrutiny, and the will as the coordinating 
activity, dependent on the measure of self-knowledge and 
self-control which we possess. In many of us there is a 
break between the emotional-instinetive life and the will- 
intellectual. In others the break is between will and imag- 
ination, will and habit, or will and understanding; while 
a typical contrast is between ‘‘head’’ and “‘heart.’’ The 
former term ‘‘inclination,’’ contrasted with duty, is too 
general. So too is the term ‘‘self-love,’’? put in antithesis 
with love toward others.® In each case the negative or con- 
demnatory terms involve activities which are good in 
proper relations. Duality of self is not to be overcome by 
dwelling on a specific contrast, say that between the emo- 
tions and the understanding; but by noting that the pri- 
mary difficulty is in our view of life, with the attitude we 
take. 

Substitution.—Desires, for example, can not be driven 
out: desires that are less eligible can be subordinated to 
those more worthy, the coarser controlled by the finer. 
So in time all desires may be assigned to their places in 
a scale, as we regulate desire for food, as we moderate 
our desires for pleasure. Many of our emotions can be 
overcome altogether. In time, ‘‘righteous indignation’’ 
may be the only emotion of anger left. Bitterness, jeal- 
ousy, and similar emotions may wholly cease. Our emo- 
tions of fear and the exciting emotions allied with it may 
wane, aS we acquire composure, and grow in wisdom. 
Pity, sympathy, compassion may be modified by giving 
heed to what is wise to do; while sentiments which never 
do any good may give place to those impulses which lead 
to efficient altruism. What will become of loyalty and 
patriotism as emotions will depend on our conclusions con- 
cerning their rightful objectives. Love of pleasure can 
not be eliminated, but it may be purified as the whole 
tone of mental life is purified; and love of giving pleasure, 


8 Dresser, op. cit., pp. 438, 683. 


Moral Problems 4.19 


of making others happy may for the most part take its 
place. So too imagination may be put to higher uses. In 
short, the ‘‘warring element’’ in our nature is in every 
instance power that has not yet been rightly utilized. Any- 
thing in our nature may impede, but anything in our na- 
ture may aid. 

Repressions.—Suppression is the prime reason for inner 
conflict, with most of us. Misapprehending the conflict, 
we try to put it down, or ignore it. Thus inhibition is 
constant in our inner life. Love of ease, laziness, inertia, 
and unwillingness to make persistent effort to understand 
and overcome our repressions are some of the reasons why 
we do not master our inhibitions. Conventionality carried 
to excess, a New England conscience, too much constraint, 
over-seriousness, and heightened self-consciousness are 
also reasons. Timidity, hesitancy in action, and undue 
sensitiveness are sometimes factors. The moral of the tale 
that is told about our inner life is not, unbridled expres- 
sion; it is freedom of the sort which characterizes the 
inner life when we use our powers creatively, when we are 
doing what is worth while. When inhibition means ‘‘ power 
confined,’’ expression must become as free as possible, but 
always with a worthy end in view. 

Affirmatively speaking, we may say that inner conflict 
signifies an opportunity for the moral realization of the 
self. The process of awakening into freedom is gradual 
with us all. Part of our difficulty is due to the fact that 
some of us tend to be over-masterful, while others tend 
to yield too much; some to be exacting or dominating, 
others to submit for the sake of harmony. Hence our 
inner struggles bear intimate relation to our social con- 
duct, especially in the home. The tendency of thought 
today is to objectify the personal problems which remained 
mysterious so long only as the individual kept them to 
himself in the old self-analytical way. 

Man’s Mental Environment.—lIf it is to be a question 
of environment, ethically speaking, the question arises, 
What is my environment? Is it New England in contrast 
with India? Is it one’s social sphere exclusively? Is it 


420 The Moral Lvfe 


one’s brain (determinism)? Is it my sphere of thought 
and feeling, my inner life, my spiritual mind in contrast 
with all that the natural mind discloses? An unrepentant 
convict, writing from the United States Federal Prison in 
Atlanta, finds that for him it is the sphere of condemna- 
tion he is put under once for all. ‘‘I am,’’ he writes, ‘‘a 
physician who allowed himself to become an investor and 
partner in a brokerage business. At the top of my pro- 
fession, honored, rich, I am now disgraced, and a Govern- 
ment prisoner. . . . Although in full charge of the scien- 
tific research work in the hospital, where I have made sev- 
eral valuable discoveries . . . still I am now in the conno- 
tation of society’s mind ‘a convict,’ with all the horrors 
that word always meant to me. My children no longer 
acknowledge me. Fraternal organizations that pose as 
‘brothers’... and society in general inexorably, per- 
manently, heartlessly, and with sardonic joy, exert their 
resistless, crushing pressure to exact a thousand eyes for 
an eye, millions of teeth for a tooth. Human nature, tra- 
dition, clergymen, churches, schools, newspapers, see to 
it that you are indelibly and forever branded as ‘an ex- 
convict,’ ‘a cheater,’ ‘a robber of orphans,’ ‘a felon,’ ‘a 
criminal,’ and worse stigmas. 

‘‘Men here that crossed a state line with a woman to 
whom they were not married, distillers honored and re- 
spected until legislatures and Congress turned them into 
‘convicts,’ pathetic ill-bred men erazed with narcotic dis- 
eases, Insane men, ignorant boys . . . doctors prescribing 
liquor, druggists filling too many whiskey prescriptions, 
brokers misled by promoters, doctors and clergymen misled 
by sharpers—these are all here to be eternally branded and 
stigmatized, whether here for a year and a day, or four 
years or more, as long as they live, by their impeccable, 
virtuous, holier-than-thou public preachers, public prints, 
and public gossip. And this is not the half of it... ’’® 

The Moral Environment.—We reach the same conclu- 
sion then as in our study of moral forces. The sphere of 
influences to which a man is most directly subject is mental 

9 Jan. 29, 1924, quoted (unsigned) in The Boston Transcript. 


Moral Problems 421 


or moral, rather than material. Man is indeed conditioned 
by heredity and material environment. His problems 
grow out of his relationship to his social conditions. But 
primarily it is a question of the point attained in his moral 
development, in the light of the prevalent ideas to which 
he is subject. On the one hand is the attitude of people 
in the given social situation toward the individual, the 
prejudices, condemnations, or the appreciations and the 
hopes. On the other hand is the individual’s response to 
the taboos and harsh judgments, or the sympathy and 
kindness. The total situation on the individual’s part 
includes all those mental factors classified by the psycho- 
analysts in our day as ‘‘unconscious.’’ Life is a process 
of awakening into knowledge of what all these influences 
are, and a growth in wisdom in meeting them. Over against 
all that is adverse on the part of society in its prohibitions, 
stands the individual, counseled by Emerson to believe in 
and rely on himself: ‘‘Nothing is at last sacred but the 
integrity of your own mind . . . the only right is what 
is after my constitution, the only wrong what is against 
it.”’ “‘The soul’s emphasis is always right.’’ The integ- 
rity of one’s own mind is seen, in the light of the fore- 
going chapters, to be the larger self, the moral individual 
whose full nature is to be realized. The ‘‘right’’ which 
is ‘‘after my constitution’’ is that which accords with my 
social selfhood, typical as I am of all moral beings arriv- 
ing at the stage-of reflective consciousness. The emphasis 
of the self is ‘‘always right’’ because one abides by con- 
science, in contrast with any number of opinions and infiu- 
ences to the contrary. 

self-mastery.—The objection most likely to be raised 
to the whole method advocated in our study of the virtues 
is that it is still too analytical, that we have not succeeded 
in avoiding all introspection and subjectivity. Our reply 
is that the true method consists in penetrating all analysis 
to the end, to see its values as well as its limitations. Im- 
peding self-consciousness is a stage only in the process of 
self-knowledge. Socrates, who set the example of pro- 
found self-knowledge, was noted in his life for his re- 


422 The Moral Life 


markable self-mastery. He was the free spirit of the group, 
in those famous assemblages of the youth and the Sophists 
of Athens. He was the one who actually lived the maxim, 
‘‘Nothing to excess.”’? And any one who profits by his 
great example will reserve the right to keep free in spirit, 
to retain his spontaneity, ‘‘the dance of life,’’ however far 
he carries his self-discipline. 

The over-confident disciples of psycho-analysis in our 
day, steeped in the literature of sex-novels, reveling in 
everything Freud says about repressions in the uncon- 
scious, reacting against law and order, scoffing at Puri- 
tanism, glorying in the Soviet (which they idealize at 
a distance), and putting aside moral distinctions as sheer 
remains of the Mid-Victorian age, would fain have us be- 
lieve that there is nothing good whatever in self-mastery. 
For the prime trouble with us is said to be ‘‘inhibition’’ 
or self-suppression; and the great need, expression. 
Therefore ‘‘the new psychology’’ is a complete substitute 
for the scientific psychology of all the ages and for all 
ethics too. As for intellectualism, as for our educational 
system—what does it avail, when it makes of us, who 
might have been free, such pent-up, self-restrained mortals? 

““‘The new point of view,’’ writes a partisan of this 
reactionism, ‘‘is utterly against self-mastery; it regards 
the very principle as wrong.’’ ‘‘Conflict within ends all 
hope of happiness.’’ ‘‘It is only within recent years that 
a clear grasp of love has been gained. This insight came 
out of behaviorism and psycho-analysis rather than from 
inductive or speculative fields of thought. We know today 
that it is instinctive, emotional, and physiological. 

We respond in relation to our hereditary pattern. 
Self-control or repression is the burying or denial of the 
tendency, holding it within the self... ”’ 

True Self-expression.—_But of what avail, it might be 
asked, is your new attitude, if, reacting against intellectual 
education, aspiration after what is beautiful and the 
impetus toward the spiritual life, the new freedom is 
gained at the expense of what is highest and finest in the 
human self? To go from bondage to bondage is do little 


Moral Problems 423 


more than to gain new literary material, in an age which, 
for the moment, has grown weary of the best, and is willing 
to jazz even the most beautiful melodies in its mania for 
something different. The man who checks his higher na- 
ture is likely for the time being to disparage the very wis- 
dom that would set him free. But, on the other hand, the 
much-disparaged idealist, signalized as an example of all 
that is most unfortunate in self-mastery, possesses a very 
great advantage over the partisan of ‘‘the new freecdom,”’ 
in the fact that he knows he is using his self-mastery as 
a means, the end being true self-expression. It is the one 
who has passed through the process of intellectual educa- 
tion in our day who understands these processes. ‘‘ Every 
new mind is a new classification,’’ says Emerson. The 
great need is for knowledge of the type, with insight into 
the ideal which enables that mind to realize its type. The 
true clue is to be found, not by dredging to see what may 
have been lost overboard in life’s voyage, but through the 
values put before the spirit as ideal objects of faith, as 
incentives to power. Not what we have come from, but 
where we are going, is the great consideration. Relapse 
into the literature of barbarism is a confession of the fact, 
on the part of its devotees, that one does not really wish 
to know the self, that one prefers camouflage for the nonce. 
So the pretense is that those who are serious-minded are 
endlessly self-restrained, pathetic in the extreme in their 
bondage to conventionality; while self-mastery is taken 
to be nothing more than ‘‘control of the powers of self 
by external means; a lashing of the spirit as it were, to set 
standards of conventional thought.’’ Meanwhile, true self- 
mastery springs from realization of the fact that ‘‘that 
which a man can do best none but his Maker can teach 
him.’’ ‘‘There is guidance for each one of us, and by lowly 
listening we shall hear the right word.’’ ‘‘Do your work 
and you shall reinforce yourself.’’ 1° 


10 Emerson, Hssays, First Series. 


4.24 The Moral Infe 


REFERENCES 


RAUSCHENBUSCH, W., Christianity and the Social Crisis, 1907, 
p. 264, foll. 

SmitH, Hamblin, The Psychology of the Criminal, 1923, 
Chap. VI. 

Firr, W., Individualism, 1911. 

Hocxine, W., Human Nature and its Remaking, 1918. 

Meckuin, J. M., Introduction to Social Ethics, 1920, Chaps. 
XVI, XXI. 

WituiaMs, J. M., Principles of Social Psychology, 1922, Bk. V. 

ADDAMS, JANE, Democracy and Social Ethics, 1902; Newer Ideals 
of Peace, 1907. 


CHAPTER XXVI 
INTERNATIONAL ETHICS 


World Issues.—It is sometimes maintained that inter- 
national relations are never matters of ethics, because‘there 
is no power or international police to enforce treaties or 
other agreements. If a nation chooses to set treaties aside, 
and impose its rule on another nation by force of arms, 
or to invade a neighboring nation on the way to fight an- 
other, why then, as ‘‘necessity knows no law,’’ there is 
nothing to prevent. But certain principles of equity re- 
main, in the form of a gentleman’s agreement among na- 
tions, and public sentiment increasingly sustains this agree- 
ment, even when governments try to set it aside. The 
Hague Tribunal was not sufficiently established to receive 
the recognition which was its due, when the World War 
became imminent. Since the armistice, it has seemed im- 
perative, to many, to establish an international police to 
sustain the League of Nations. But the trend of public 
sentiment in some quarters has been in favor of an interna- 
tional court of arbitration, on the ground that the world is 
now ready to debate international issues precisely as mat- 
ters have been adjusted between states on a smaller scale. 
There is a strong conviction that the principles of justice 
which have prevailed within one nation should be extended 
to the nations in general. This would be a further enlarge- 
ment of relationships which have been in process of exten- 
sion ever since families and tribes began to adjust their 
difficulties on an ethical basis in contrast with mere appeal 
to tradition or custom. 

International Law.—Meanwhile, added groups of prin- 
ciples known as international law have contributed a point 
of view differing in some respects from civil laws in the 
community, and also set apart from international ethics; 

425 


426 The Moral Life 


hence as falling outside the scope of our inquiry. Fen- 
wick, for example, raises the question of the real nature 
of international law as compared with national law. Inter- 
national law may be regarded as a positive system in con- 
trast with rules with legal validity, or rules asserted by 
individual governments, guided by either altruistic or 
egoistie (selfish) motives. The existing rules of interna- 
tional law may then be tested by the general conceptions 
of justice in vogue in the several states, international law 
being still in the formative stage. In the smaller social 
groups there are found, rules of conduct (1) governing 
the conflicts of individual claims, (2) protecting the rights 
of members of the community, (3) prescribing the re- 
spective duties. The criterion in each ease is ‘‘the sense 
of justice prevailing at the given time within the com- 
munity.’’ The law is established as the basis of peace, and 
in the same way there is need of law between states. 
Hence Fenwick defines international law as ‘‘the body of 
rules accepted by the general community of nations as de- 
fining their rights and the means of procedure by which 
those rights may be protected or violations of them re- 
dressed.’’ Fenwick makes no reference to ‘‘moral stand- 
ards,’’ as he interprets this term, because the criterion is: 
rules of conduct ‘‘actually recognized by nations’’ instead 
of ‘abstract theories or ideals of future conduct.’’ That 
is to say, rules are kept distinct from ‘‘ethics,’’ the sources 
of these being the body of customs prevailing in the several 
nations. 

Sources of International Principles—In behalf of our 
departmental ways of thinking, and for the sake of spe- 
cialization, this distinction is an advantage. But to insist 
on it is to neglect both a profound historical fact and the 
greatest hope for conciliation among the nations. One of 
the radical misconceptions which prevent partisans of 
ethics, the law, sociology, social psychology, and economies 
from drawing more closely together is the assumption that 
a principle, because advocated by a philosopher, notably 
an idealist in the ethical field, is ‘‘abstract.’’ But, as we 

1C. G. Fenwick, International Law, 1924, p. 34. 


International Ethics 4Q7 


have repeatedly seen in the foregoing chapters, the phi- 
losopher makes explicit the principles implied in the life 
and thought of the people. Confucius did not invent, or 
propose as an abstract theory, the Golden Rule, but formu- 
lated the principle of reciprocity as the most enlightened 
among his people already knew it and lived it. What 
Hobhouse, Westermarck, Myers, and other writers on ‘‘his- 
tory as past ethics’’ declose to us are the rules of corduct 
‘“actually recognized by nations,’’ to use Fenwick’s phrase. 
The ideal for future conduct is a better statement of prin- 
ciples already in operation, and it is a well-known fact 
that the conduct of people often exceeds in value any 
formulation of the ideal trend of such conduct. Thus 
Plato found inspiration in a type of national life which has 
never yet been surpassed in the world’s history, so far at 
least as concrete relation between practice and the ideal is 
concerned. 

All scientific wisdom began in systematic form with Aris- 
totle, greatest among creators of special sciences; and Aris- 
totle drew upon all available resources to master the exist- 
ing constitutions of the world. Aristotle was abstract (that 
is, theoretical) at the point where all men become in a 
measure speculative, namely, when our learning gives out. 
Lacking the microscope, the telescope, and the scientific 
laboratory with its mechanical equipment, he indulged in 
abstractions to eke out his scant learning in regard to the 
astronomical system and the exceedingly minute structure 
of matter and organic life. The principles he formulated 
concerning the conduct of nations and individuals had a 
distinct advantage in comparison with our own excessive 
habit of categorizing: he did not separate what belongs 
together, but regarded man as an ethical and political or 
social being all in the same fundamental sense. We are 
carrying on the same process of making explicit the agree- 
ments and constitutions of men in terms of general prin- 
ciples which are still in their formative period. 

Ethics and Laws.—Long ago, ethics and the law 
emerged out of the more persistent or approved customs 
of the several peoples, independently formulating essen- 


428 | The Moral Life 


tially the same rules. Today, we find international cus- 
toms, flexible, uncertain, often in conflict, leading to formu- 
lation as international law and ethics. The principle pro- 
posed is identical with that which has been advocated 
throughout history, namely, that where disputes between 
groups were once settled by appeal to arms, these shall 
now be settled by appeal to reason or justice. And, 
granted an agreement, spoken or written, if it shall be car- 
ried into effect in any other way than by force of arms or 
an international police, this must be by appeal to what 
ought to be done, and any such appeal is an appeal to 
ethics. What is imperative then is comparative study of 
the principles of justice as actually in practice within the 
several nations, as concrete, not abstract, to see if we may 
now complete the work which Aristotle began, namely, by 
finding the international principles immanent in the na- 
tional, already in practice by implication. . 

The ideal for the future will then be, not a speculative 
scheme, for such schemes soon fall by the wayside, as in 
case of some of Plato’s modes of settling social difficulties ; 
it will be the next formulation of principles already point- 
ing toward a further advance in actual practices among 
nations. Whenever such a formulation runs counter to 
principles already strongly entrenched, as in the case of 
the opposition encountered by President Wilson in Paris 
and on the part of senators in the United States who put 
personal political quarrels above the peace of the world, 
then there is conflict, probably compromise, but eventually 
a controversy which brings into view the profound reasons 
for adopting the new formulation. An ideal does not, 
we have seen, become an actual force in the community 
till grounded in things in process. This is what we mean 
by a rational ideal. Up to that time it remains an hypoth- 
esis, aS democracy is still regarded by some as an hypoth- 
esis never likely to be put into real effect. 

Popular Sovereignty.—Thus Mussolini, when presented 
with a sword by the Fascisti of Imola, reflecting on the 
fact that Machiavelli’s saying, ‘‘You ean not maintain a 
State by words,’’ was engraved on the sword, wrote that 


International Ethics 429 


there have been many attempts to make government sub- 
ject to the free will of the people, but the theory is based 
on ‘‘foolishness and untruths.’’?’ Why? Because ‘‘such 
a theory is merely a political abstraction. No one knows 
where it commences or where it ends. The adjective sov- 
ereign applied to the people is a tragic farce. At most, 
the people appoint delegates, but it is absurd to suppose 
that the people exercise sovereignty. There is little moral 
justification for representative government, but a great 
deal can be said for its mechanical usefulness. Even in 
countries where representative government has always ob- 
tained, a time occurs when it is fatal to consult the people. 
In times of war the card-board crown of sovereignty is 
stripped from the people (for it is only fit for normal 
times), and the people have no alternative but to plunge 
into the unknown perils of war or to declare for revolution. 
For such oceasions the people have but one duty to affirm 
and obey. It is evident that the sovereignty graciously 
granted to the people is taken from it when it is most 
needed. In fact, it is only allowed to continue when it is 
innocuous, or considered as such, that is to say, during the 
placid course of ordinary administration. . . . Can any 
one imagine a war being declared by a referendum? A 
referendum is a very good thing when it is a question of 
choosing the best spot for the village pump. But when the 
supreme interests of the people are at stake, even the most 
ultra-democratic governments take care not to submit them 
to the judgment of the people. . . .’’ 

The Rule of the Best.—Secretary Hughes was quoted 
awhile ago as saying that ‘‘the greatest difficulty that we 
have in making democratic institutions work is in securing 
play for expert ability. Paradoxical as it may seem, we 
are too often overpowered by feebleness.’? Hence what is 
needed is ‘‘balance’’ in our Government, to secure us 
‘‘against rashness, ignorance, and passion.’?? This bal- 
ance Plato and Aristotle long ago provided for in terms of 
the rule of the best, a plan which we still try occasionally 
—in the case of the Galveston disaster, when the commis- 


2 Quoted in The New York Times. 


430 The Moral Infe 


sion form of government was employed; in war-time, when, 
to save the day, politicians and diplomats are set aside in 
favor of the man of the hour, a Lloyd George or a Clemen- 
ceau; in the army, amidst the greatest crisis, when even 
the commanding general must be dispossessed of his com- 
mand, or when an Allied generalissimo is put over all the 
armies, whatever the feeling on the part of other generals. 
In actual practice the world already knows what the most 
effective principle is. In actual moral conviction the world 
already knows what principles ought to be carried into 
international realization. 

The Two Ethical Types—McDougall’s attempted solu- 
tion of the difficulty, within the field of ethics, is based 
on the observation that our civilization has developed on 
a dual ethical basis: there are two very different systems, 
national and universal, which have never been harmonized 
but have been in perpetual conflict. With partial excep- 
tions, all historic moral codes have been codes regulating 
the conduct of individuals, with little regard for the re- 
lationships of nation with nation.? Hence theoretical and 
practical ethics have in the main been the ethics of the 
individual. Christianity and Buddhism, and in a measure 
Mohammedanism, are universal, are identified with relig- 
lous endeavors to bring all men under the sway of one 
system of rules of conduct; in contrast with the ethical 
systems of Judaism, Japan, China, and Brahmanism, as 
typical national types. China, for instance, is the supreme 
ease of the endurance among nations of an ethical creed. 
A system of national ethics is incapable of extension to 
alien peoples. To succeed in establishing international 
ethics, we should ‘‘refine by criticism the ethico-political 
principles which will best further the progress of man- 
kind. . . .’’* It is imperative to combine national and 
universal ethics, by regarding the several nations as the 
bearers of culture and moral tradition, with due regard 
for the native qualities of the population of each nation, 
and by looking upon each man as not only an end in him- 


3.W. McDougall, Ethics and Modern World Problems, 1924, p. 5. 
4 Op. cit., p. 164. 


International Ethics 43) 


self but as an element in the life of the nation in relation 
to the supreme ethical goal, his welfare being in some de- 
gree subordinated to that of the nation. The ideal might 
be regarded as representative democracy in which the aris- 
tocratiec principle is given due weight. 

Representative Democracy.—In this connection Me- 
Dougall raises the question why England went into the war 
for civilization at once while the United States delayed 
three years, and the reason he gives is that ‘‘in Great Brit- 
ain the political organization retained more of the truly 
representative and aristocratic principle, had not drifted 
so far down the slope towards ultra-democracy as had the 
United States.’?> He quotes an authority high in diplo- 
matic circles on the point that President Wilson used with 
great effect the prestige of his high office to suppress the 
sounder judgments and more generous impulses of the 
American people; and thereby reaches the conclusion that 
if the American nation had been better organized on the 
true principles of representative democracy due weight 
would have been given to the best elements, the most in- 
structed, the most capable, those in whom the moral tradi- 
tion was most fully embodied. The world would then have 
been spared immense sufferings, immense losses of life and 
morale. There might have been a signal enforcement of 
international morality. To secure ethical principles in the 
political field, McDougall would substitute for the prin- 
ciple, ‘‘one adult, one vote,’’ the principle, ‘‘one qualified 
citizen, one vote,’’ eliminating (1) the mentally deficient, 
(2) the convicted criminals, and (3) the illiterate (the 
literate are those who attain or pass a certain grade of the 
educational system). He would not then give one vote 
to every adult and ‘‘leave the rest to nature.’’ 

Anti-nationalism.—Probably very few among the en- 
thusiasts and radicals of our day have considered what is 
involved in their vague idea that the abolition of national- 
ism is the solution of our difficulties. McDougall interprets 
anti-nationalism to mean that all national boundaries and 
distinctions shall be abolished, together with national preju- 


5 Ibid., p. 192. 


432 The Moral Life 


dices, preferences and anti-racial sentiments, including the 
feeling in regard to colored and yellow folk. Everybody 
in all the present nations would then be accepted on the 
basis of equality, with no differences due to religious creeds 
or ecclesiastical systems. There would be no elass-distine- 
tions based on differences in wealth, or the amount and 
quality of labor. The government might either be called 
an anarchy or world-wide cosmopolitanism. 

What class would have the privilege of establishing this 
universalism? Shall it be the laborites who insist on the 
standards of manual labor? If so, would the world then 
be completely industrialized? Shall it be a so-called pro- 
letariat of the people imposing a new tyranny on the 
world? In any event would the gains equal the losses? 
The test question then is, Is it real love of brotherhood or 
envy which underlies the movement to abolish all things 
national ? 

McDougall foresees, in the adoption of such a scheme 
(1) immense multiplication of the peoples of the lower 
cultures; (2) with freedom to emigrate or wander, a wide 
distribution of peoples; people of the most diverse origins 
would mingle in complete social equality, with no hin- 
drances due to color, caste, or class distinctions of any kind; 
there would be intermarriages or at least interunions on a 
great scale; (3) the people of higher culture would not 
multiply rapidly, but would dwindle in numbers; (4) 
miscegenation would result, as all social and legal bans to 
intermarriage would be removed. Would the prime re- 
sult be ‘‘a completely civilized, industrialized, and cosmo- 
politan world, a world in which swarms of variegated and 
parti-colored men and women pullulate in vast cities of steel 
and glass. i 42.272.8 

Such a process of so-called civilization would be carried 
out on the discredited assumption that ‘‘all men were ere- 
ated free and equal,’’ hence that any man is as good as — 
any other, that all social distinctions should die out, the 
spirit of nationality ceasing to exist, with no more race- 
pride. All these anti-national assumptions would fall if | 


8 Ibid., p. 98. 


International Ethics 433 


tested by the principles we have laid down above, namely, 
in favor of recognizing and developing differences and in- 
dividualisms in so far as they are contributory to the 
moral wealth of the world. For we have advocated larger 
groupings with reference to diversities in capacity, in gifts, 
in power to become morally productive. Thus the emi- 
grant could still be actuated by the desire to become a true 
American, proud of his citizenship in ‘‘the greatest na- 
tion in the world,’’ aspiring to maintain and promote the 
greatness of his adopted country. National pride and 
aspiration would not be mere memories of ‘‘a dark and 
dreadful past.’’ Nor would the assumption that ‘‘all men 
are potentially as good as the best’’ become the universal 
principle, with ‘‘every Hottentot, every dweller in the 
slums of Canton, of Madras, or of London,’’ regarded as 
by nature the equal of Washington and Lincoln. 
Ultra-democracy.— McDougall calls special attention to 
the facts that (1) some races or peoples have been more 
- prolific than others in individuals who have displayed great 
capacities; (2) some peoples have contributed far more 
than others to the development of culture; and some have 
proved their capacity to sustain for a time a high level of 
civilization, while the capacity of other peoples to do so 
remains unproved; (3) among all people there is a con- 
siderable proportion of individuals who do not assimilate 
the higher culture and who, therefore, do not and can not 
contribute to the maintenance and further development of 
civilization, but require constant supervision and regula- 
tion.? The result of some of the experimental attempts 
to ignore these and other facts, that is, by the imposition of 
manual labor doctrines, is seen in the ease of bricklayers 
striking for a basic wage of $12.00 per day, and expressing 
dissatisfaction because they are not getting $18.00; scav- 
engers and street-cleaners receiving higher salaries than 
elementary school teachers; while no unskilled trade-union- 
ist would be allowed for a day to accept the salary of an 
average clergyman. The prime result of ‘‘unmitigated 
democracy’’ would be ‘‘the destruction of all those pre- 


7 Ibid., p. 115. 


434 The Moral Infe 


rogatives which the brain-workers have enjoyed in every 
flourishing civilization,’’ whereas under former conditions 
the exceptional hand-worker had a natural ambition to 
rise into the brain-working class. In ultra-democracy the 
conditions would be unfavorable to the perpetuation of the 
stronger strains. The more grossly constituted would sup- 
plant the more finely constituted. There would be strict 
communism and brotherly love, on the assumption that all 
men have an equal claim to an equal share in all that is 
worth having. 

McDougall’s Solution. What now is McDougall’s solu- 
tion on an ethical basis for the problem of uniting the two 
types of ethical theory, the national with the universal? 
Examining utilitarianism anew, he finds need of a social 
organization to provide for or guarantee the continuance 
of pleasure and happiness as the good, that is, ‘‘the endur- 
mg and the highest happiness of the greatest number.’’ ® 
In this scheme each man is to be both means and end. 
The principle of ultra-democracy does not afford the clue 
because it is founded on deep-lying distrust of human na- 
ture: each man is to be regarded as of equal value because 
no man can be trusted to act fairly towards his fellow- 
men. Hence ultra-democracy is the counsel of despair, and 
the implied principles have never yet been practiced by 
any large and enduring community. 

Yet McDougall is also skeptical regarding any such agree- 
ment as the League of Nations, unless it shall be enforced 
by an international airplane force. While then his argu- 
ment is a strong plea for an ethical solution on the basis 
of the preservation of nationalism, its weak point is due 
to neglect of the alternatives to utilitarianism. If happi- 
ness is to be ‘‘enduring,’’ as well as ‘‘highest,’? and for 
‘‘the greatest number,’’ the organization of values essen- 
tial to these ends will be the significant consideration. The 
‘‘oreatest number’’ will include, in the ease of international 
relations, the peoples of the several lands brought into the 
organization, on the basis of recognition of national types. 


8 Ibid., p. 133. 
9 Ibid., p. 166. 





International Ethics 435 


It might then be said that the ideal for each nation is 
realization of the characteristic ideals.t° ‘‘Live and let 
live’’ will then be the policy, in contrast with the imperial 
ambitions of the great nations of the past. The United 
States, as a one in many, has already exemplified the prin- 
ciple of relationship which may sometime be realized in 
a “‘United States of Europe’’ and a ‘‘ United States of the 
World.’’ But if such a union is to be achieved profound 
recognition of national types will be imperative, amid even 
greater divergences than those which have beset the United 
States Government since the incoming of a vast tide of 
immigrants, many of whom brought their radicalisms and 
discontents from the Old World. 

Christianity and Democracy.—Other scholars, more 
hopeful than McDougall, have found no essential conflict 
between Christianity, as a system of universal ethics, and 
democracy as yielding the greatest impetus which the 
ethical movement has received since the rise of Christian- 
ity.11 It is the democratic movement which has extended 
‘‘the Christian principle of equality to the political, the 
social, and the economic domain. . . . It is this identity 
of the essential spirit of democracy with the essential spirit 
of Christianity which makes the incoming of democracy a 
revolution of such supreme importance in the moral history 
of the world.’’ Prominent among the agencies which have 
fostered the growth of civilization in the ethical direction 
are the great inventions which have broken the isolation 
of the nations, and bound them together by a thousand 
ties, commercial, social, and intellectual, leading toward 
‘‘the growing international conscience of today.’’ Social 
revolutions, such as the French Revolution of 1789, have 
aided the ethical movement; democracy has broken down 
the invidious caste and class distinctions of old; modern 
education has greatly aided the process. 

Myers finds the failure of the new industrialism as a move- 


10 Fullerton proposes as the solution of the contrasted ethical ideals 
the principle of the Rational Social Will, Handbook of Ethical Theory, 
339 


“41 Cf. Myers, op. ctt., p. 340, 


436 The Moral Life 


ment which might have fostered true democracy to be due 
to the divorce between ethics and business, as in Italy 
during the Renaissance there was a divorce of ethics from 
politics... Unfortunately, economists have taught that 
ethics has nothing to do with economics. On the other hand 
there is ever-growing recognition of the truth that the re- 
lationships of men in business are conditioned by the law 
of human brotherhood. Myers cites as an example of the 
growing ‘‘social conscience’ the changed moral judg- 
ments concerning the African slave-trade, in contrast with 
the period when the peoples of Western Christendom had 
practically no conscience whatever in the matter, although 
the conscience of the age was in many other matters true 
and sensitive. ‘‘The whole subject lay practically outside 
the realm of morals. The slave-trade was looked upon as 
a perfectly legitimate business. Practically no one thought 
it wrong to go to Africa, kidnap or purchase a shipload of 
the natives, bring them in stifling holds—where some- 
times half the unhappy victims died on the passage—to 
the West Indies or to the Spanish and English mainland 
of the Americas and sell them as slaves.’ 7° 

International Progress——Then came the profoundly 
significant revolt of conscience. The history of the growth 
of conscience in any social group—clan, tribe, nation—is 
much the same, also in the slow history of the develop- 
ment of conscience in humanity at large, between the 
groups which compose the human race. First comes the 
clarifying conscience, then the law codes, private and pub- 
lic, which embody it; and so too the development of inter- 
national law follows the earlier development of municipal 
law. Hence Myers defines moral progress in the interna- 
tional domain as ‘‘the gradual assimilation of international 
to intranational ethics, or, in other words, the growing con- 
formity of the standard of public morality to that of pri- 
vate morality.’’1* | Thus, there is increasing recognition 
by governments of the fact that the obligations of the 


12 [bid., p. 348. 
13 Ibid., p. 365. 
14 Ibid., p. 372. 


International Ethics 437 


strong toward the weak are the same for nations as for 
individuals. Our dealings with Cuba since its liberation 
is an instance of this progress in international morality. 
Again, the movement toward the abolition of war is an 
evidence of quickened social conscience, with the widespread 
protest against the assumption that nations may suspend 
the ordinary moral code when they will to make war; also 
the protest against the eulogizing of the martial virtues: 
these protests ‘‘announce the birth into the modern fvorld 
of a new international conscience.’’ 1° 

The Social Conscience.—Admitting that equality is not 
ultimate even in democracy, but will always remain more 
or less a fiction, also that ‘‘the average man’’ is mythical, 
Mecklin nevertheless maintains that democracy as the 
solvent may become increasingly efficient through the or- 
ganization and self-consciousness of a body of sentiment, 
hence that we may rightfully speak of a social conscience 
as authoritative. 1° Indeed, the average man is the keeper 
of the conscience of the community, for better or worse 
we have committed our destinies to him, and the salvation 
of society will be his salvation. Hence the need of look- 
ing back through the ages to discover with renewed inter- 
est the origins of the moral sentiments which for the most 
part constitute the conscience of today, for example, Puri- 
tanism as an element, Calvinism, the individualistic ele- 
ment, also the growing conception of the Great Society.1* 
There are still ‘‘vast areas of our modern life that have 
completely outgrown the traditional norms of the social 
conscience. For it is a familiar fact that the principles 
of right and wrong that one generation applies to its prob- 
lems are usually the product of the moral experiences of 
its fathers.’’ 18 

The moral indifference or anarchy which we experience 
are then in part due to the fact that we have not brought 
our principles up to the standard of our conduct. Truly 


15 Ibid., p. 382. 

16 Introd. to Social Ethics, p. 5. 
17 Ibid., Chap. IV. 

18 Ibid., p. 77. 


438 The Moral Infe 


to think in ethical terms would be to correlate one’s thought 
with the actual problems of the community and the nation; 
since, in the last analysis, morality is a matter of social 
sanity. ‘‘HEthical values are those which are fundamental 
for the solution of the social problem, the essence of which 
is how to enable men and women to live together with the 
least amount of friction and the best safeguarding of. hu- 
man values.’’ ?9 

The American Conscience.—What Mecklin finds to be 
a primary difficulty with morality in America, namely, 
that it is ‘‘haphazard, local, piecemeal,’’ is true of the 
world: the world has not yet brought its ethical thinking 
up to the standard of the best practice within the greater 
nations or between the nations. So far the morality of 
America is ‘‘the morality that embraces those norms which 
must be observed if the business man is to get along peace- 
fully and successfully with his business associate ... if 
the minister is to enjoy the sympathy and confidence of 
his sect,’’? or the morality which the member of the labor 
union ‘‘finds essential to the welfare of his group,’’ which 
the political party ‘‘insists each shall observe if he plays 
the political game.’’ What we lack is the comprehensive 
authoritative norms, ‘‘acknowledged by all classes and set 
up as the common goal of a common citizenship in a great 
democracy,’’ we lack a fully self-conscious democracy. It 
is indeed true that despite our localisms we possess such 
conceptions as justice, fidelity to contract, truthfulness, 
honor, intermingled with ‘‘the great democratic norms’’ 
of liberty, equality, and fraternity; and it may be said 
that these are what hold society together. But these must 
be made concrete in an actual social program. 

It would not be difficult to agree upon a definition of 
justice: the difficulty is in trying to unite upon a social 
policy which shall embody the principle of justice. We 
have still to reckon with the conflict between individualism 
and collectivism. There is a dualism in American life. In 
theory we are idealists, in practice pragmatists or material- 
ists. ‘‘When the tide of life runs smoothly and the stern 

19 Ibid., p. 84. 


International Ethics 439 


necessity for criticism and analysis does not press upon us, 
the average American is apt to be thoughtless and adven- 
turous, materialist in business, a Philistine in culture and 
a prig in religion and morals.’’ 7° 

Social Conscience Defined.—To play our part, therefore, 
in the solution of world problems we should rise to the 
level of thought which we occasionally attain when facing 
a great crisis, as in our civil war and in the World, War. 
This means, if one shall profit by Mecklin’s keen analysis, 
more careful discrimination between (1) custom, in which 
we yield to social habit without any feeling of obligation, 
and (2) social conscience, which is to be understood in 
the light of its traditional norms. Mecklin defines the so- 
cial conscience as ‘‘that body of comprehensive ethical 
norms that are integral parts of the moral sentiments of 
the members of the group, that enjoy unchallenged author- 
ity, that function almost automatically in the settlement of 
ethical issues, and that insure the continuity and the in- 
tegrity of the group’s life.’’??. The primary objects are 
social justice and civie righteousness, intimately associated 
as they are with the institutional forms which safeguard 
national welfare. The social conscience then is ‘‘the sub- 
jective correlative in the minds of the members of the com- 
munity of that objective balance of wills that finds expres- 
sion through a well-ordered institutional life.’’ It is ‘‘indi- 
vidual in residence’’ but ‘‘social in function.’’ It is meant 
to be essentially disinterested. As a result of the World 
War it should become international or cosmopolitan. In- 
deed the Stoic conception of humanitarianism has become 
a matter of immediate and practical statecraft. The social 
consciences of the nations must be reorganized in terms of 
the common interests and ideals of a family of nations, 
so that the new internationalism shall be based on the or- 
ganization of the sentiments of the private citizen.” 

This will mean, for one thing, more intimate knowledge 
of the limiting types of social conscience, of public opinion, 


20 [bid., p. 90. 
21 Ibid., p. 119. 
22 [bid., p. 139. 


440 The Moral Life 


the tyranny of the majority, the prevalence of prejudice, 
the reign of such habits in politics as ‘‘the solid South.”’ 
One might add to this list the tyranny of ‘‘the vociferous 
minority,’’ responsible, no doubt, for the introduction of 
the prohibition amendment before the conscience of the 
community had adjusted itself to the scientific facts con- 
cerning the use of alcoholic drinks; the tyranny of ‘‘the 
machine’’ in polities; of the demagogue whose group is too 
influential in national life; of ‘‘the irreconcilables’’ and 
of the senators who are averse to ratifying any sort of 
treaty with any sort of nation. | 

The International Conscience.—It is plain then from 
our analysis of matters which demand a large volume on 
international ethics that we are still in the formative period 
of thought, hesitating to make the step from the application 
of ethical principles to large groups which we have suc- 
cessfully applied to small, notably in the historic days 
when the Constitution and Congress were in the making, 
and political life had not degenerated from the ethical to 
the irrationally partisan level. International law in proc- 
ess of more explicit formulation represents a stage in the 
progress toward the coming international conscience. It 
will be made more effective by becoming frankly ethical, 
not in the sense of allegiance (with McDougall) to a par- 
ticular system, such as utilitarianism; but with regard for 
the common principles of justice as already recognized by 
leading nations. So too the larger social conscience will 
develop by more searchingly testing out such contrasted 
views of democracy as we have summarized above. Econo- 
mists and sociologists can help by overcoming the habit 
of over-categorizing, as if their respective departments had 
nothing in common with ethics, or even with social psy- 
chology, is if it were almost a duty to persuade people not 
to make ethics a major subject, but resolutely to rule out 
all ethical questions. Religionists can help by inquiring 
into the genesis of their doctrinal patterns, by analyzing to 
the limit the elements of their faith, and returning in full 
vigor to allegiance to what is dynamic, quickening. De- 
votees of programs for radical social reform ean help by 


International Ethics 441 


coming to self-consciousness concerning the materialistic 
philosophy of history on which Marxian socialism is based. 
So too pacifists may help by enlarging their sphere of in- 
terest from the discredited pacifisms of the World War 
period to recognition that problems of justice are higher 
than problems of peace. 

Organic Codperation.—More productive still may be 
the idealism of all who have a vision concerning the realiza- 
tion of the Christian ideal that we are ‘‘members one of 
another.’’ If the conception of organic codperation is 
applicable within the sphere of the individual’s most per- 
sonal life, in the relationships between the individual and 
the family, the small community, and to various types of 
social organization, it must in time prove applicable on the 
largest possible scale. The comparison with an organism 
is, we have seen, only in part a good one. Human beings 
are free-moving agents, and are not at all like attached 
eyes, ears, arms, or even the brain as the central organ. 
If they are ‘‘parts of a whole,’’ there is no common organic 
life circulating through these parts. So too in society, as 
we have repeatedly seen, there is no ‘‘social consciousness’’ 
in the sense of a group mind apart from individual minds 
taking social attitudes. Hence, in absolute strictness, there 
is no ‘‘social conscience’’ and can be no international con- 
science, if by such terms we mean an entity functioning 
over and above the functions of its elements, varying from 
the least critical public opinion to the influence of the most 
powerful minds in the community. 

The Ethical Horizon.—But the phenomenon exists, 
whatever we call it. We are in process of enlarging our 
horizon, and the symbol of the organism surpasses all others 
in the portrayal of the intimacy of relationship of fellow- 
members fulfilling varied purposes, diverse in type yet 
working together in a spirit of corporate unity. There is 
both relatedness and headship expressive of purpose in an 
organism. There is a measure of distinctive activity, yet 
dependence, and the welfare of one organism is fostered 
by that of others. Singling out the points of resemblance, 
and adopting the principle of variety in unity, it is per- 


442 The Moral Life 


missible to carry over into the field of the largest body 
politic, or social organization on a world-scale, the idea of 
moral order in all things, of mutuality, service, justice, 
amid the contributions made by distinctive groups and dis- 
tinctive individuals. For moral beings, the figure of the 
organism briefly suggests the ideal to be striven for, espe- 
cially as the larger part which each is to contribute is to 
be an extension of activities which begin at home. 

The differences to be understood and mastered between 
nations are no more sharply contrasted than those within 
the individual, torn as he often is in two directions, rent 
asunder by the conflicts of two phases, promptings or voices 
of his own nature. As desire, emotion, feeling, imagina- 
tion, the primal urge, will, and reason are to be coordinated 
in the inner life, that there may be division of labor with- 
out friction, so there may be coordination among larger 
groups in society, each with its representative mentalities. 
The first result of the coming together of rival moral tend- 
encies may be tremendous loss on the part of the one, with 
exceedingly slow gains on the part of the other, as when 
Christian supernaturalism dispossessed Greek ethics. But 
then may begin the long process of coérdination, with the 
breaking down of the doctrinal patterns which sluggishly 
hold back the social conscience. The emphasis here as 
elsewhere belongs on the achieving moral spirit rising su- 
perior alike to things Christian and things Greek and mak- 
ing in the direction of a union between national ethies and 
universal ethics. 

Our study of moral forces shows that the real problem 
is to develop the mechanisms for carrying into effect the 
principles already agreed upon as highest, so that friend- 
ship, mutuality, justice shall be realized among the nations. 
For the social situation is far more complex and difficult 
in the international world than within the leading nations 
regarded by themselves. To make the moral mechanisms 
effective so that, for one thing, there shall be a complete 
equivalent for war, it will be necessary to subordinate 
political and financial interests which will strive to the fore 
on the ground that diplomacy, political ambition, and eco- 


International Ethics 443 


nomic demands should settle world-issues. It is difficult 
enough even within a nation so to curb ambitious political 
leaders as to secure what is best in national welfare, diffi- 
eult too to secure the passage of a treaty with neighbor- 
ing nations when the most enlightened people heartily ap- 
prove of such a treaty. The political situation is ‘‘a eondi- 
tion, not a theory.’’ So too is the situation among the 
great financiers who claim to have the power in their hands 
to determine the fate of nations. Meanwhile, we have been 
steadily educating one another, and our youth, to believe 
that economic determinism is decisive. We have not taken 
ethical principles seriously enough to ground them in 
mechanisms able to outwit all partisans of secondary 
values, namely, politicians, diplomats, financial leaders, 
and other wielders of public policy who are unwilling to 
carry ethical principles into execution. This much we have 
gained however if we have learned what the next step is: 
to put into practice what we believe so that moral forces 
shall predominate. We know that there is a moral equiva- 
lent for war. We know that justice is the chief social 
virtue, what its elements are, and the recognition to be 
given to national characteristics in contrast with anti- 
nationalism. We also know that no additional ethical prin- 
ciple is needed. Meanwhile, the larger social conscience 
called for by the international situation is steadily being 
acquired in these days of widespread interchange, rapidly 
Increasing information concerning the nations, and grow- 
ing knowledge of the difficulties which beset moral idealism. 


REFERENCES 


Meckurn, J. M., An Introduction to Social Ethics, 1920, Chaps. 
VII-X. 

McDovuGatu, W., Hthics and Modern World Problems, 1924. 

Fenwick, G. C., International Law, 1924. 

Pounp, R., Law and Morals, 1924, Chap. III; bibliography. 

HucuHan, J. W., A Study of International Government, 1923. 

Bosanquet, B., The Philosophical Theory of the State, 1910, 
Chap. XI. 

Myers, P. V. N., History as Past Ethics, Chap. XVIII. 

Dewry AND Turrs, Hthics, 1908, Chaps. XXI-XXV. 

SerH, J., Hthical Principles, p. 287. 

Fouuuerton, G. S.. Handbook of Ethical Theory, Chap. XXXYV. 


CHAPTER XXVII 
MORAL PROGRESS 


Progress as Inevitable—Krom several points of view, 
the assumption is readily made that progress necessarily 
results from the interaction of forces at work in civiliza- 
tion. To start with the proposition that God, whose world- 
plan we find in process of outward manifestation, is omnip- 
otent, and in foresight omniscient, is to conclude that noth- 
ing can defeat the divine purpose to achieve the noblest 
result for the good of all, whatever the transitory oppo- 
sition. If in ultimate nature the universe is spiritual, we 
anticipate the triumph of spiritual verities, despite the un- 
ruliness of material things, and even though this triumph 
be postponed till the future life. The very truth that a 
moral order exists is taken to mean that moral forces will 
eventually be supreme in actuality as they are now poten- 
tially, hence the assumption that moral history means 
moral progress. From the point of view of the virtues 
it is maintained that love, kindliness, and justice must tri- 
umph; since these virtues are ‘‘socially right.’? Indeed, 
virtue will, we are assured, not only bring its reward, but 
more. Vice, sin, crime, evil must fail, while virtue must 
triumph because of its worth, because the moral life is pro- 
foundly worth while. Finally, evolution—however under- 
stood, whatever factors of organic development may win 
supremacy—apparently signifies that progress is inevitable, 
even though it be progress through struggle, sacrifice and 
relative defeat, and the triumph of the most fit only. 

Ancient Views of the World.—Yet other assumptions 
once seemed as plausible to moral idealists who believed 
no less profoundly than we in the ultimate reality of good- 
ness. The past was for centuries revered as perfect by 
the Chinese. To ancient Hindoo sages, aware of nearly all 

444 


Moral Progress 4A5 


the great typical viewpoints in philosophy, the world of 
things and events in space and time seemed a lapse from 
the timeless and spaceless reality of Absolute Being. In 
both India and Greece, cosmic events were conceived as a 
eycle which might sometime repeat itself, as indeed there 
have been other cycles reproducing world-events that had 
gone before. The idea of a Golden Age in the remote past 
has not wholly disappeared from the world. What is per- 
fect has often been regarded as pure Being in a changeless 
state of bliss from which souls came and to which they 
will return. With static ideas of perfection came erystal- 
lized moral standards. Hence wrong-doing was a lapse, 
apparent moral victory a repentance. The idea that a 
temporal round of experiences, with no antecedent per- 
fection to spring from, necessitates or signifies progress, 
is a modern idea. MHeraclitus long ago advanced the 
thought that what we call Being is more truly a perpetual 
Becoming, and Bergson has recently contributed the con- 
ception of creative evolution as the central principle of all 
reality. Yet on the whole the idea of Being has been 
triumphant. 

Modern Conceptions.—Although the beginnings of a 
theory of progress are found in ancient thought, the con- 
ception belongs to modern times, and is partly due to the 
enlargement of the cosmic horizon from the limited outlook 
of the old astronomy to the heliocentric theory, in Coperni- 
cus’ time, and the conception of the universe as infinite 
which begins with Bruno, burned at the stake in 1600. The 
ancient Greeks thought of the universe as a cosmos (order), 
a thing of beauty, complete, perfect. Christians for cen- 
turies contemplated heaven as an abode of perfect bliss 
beyond earth’s restlessness and strife, with nothing more 
to attain. The Nirvana of the Buddhists has always been 
conceived as the negation of every incentive and power 
which we associate with this life of desire and accomplish- 
ment. From any outlook upon perfection, either past or 
present, as immutable, hence as above time, the idea of 
change would be repulsive, as somehow suggestive of de- 
cline and decay. Religious thinkers have surpassed all 


446 The Moral Infe 


others in the defense of the faith; in contrast with the 
extremely modern notion that the endless quest for truth 
wherever it may lead is life’s greatest adventure. Hence 
theology is even now protesting against encroachments on 
the part of those who insist upon the value of restatements 
of faith, and on fidelity to the dynamic element of thought. 

With the enlargement of the world-horizon, realization 
of the meaning of discoveries and explorations in all 
quarters of the globe, increasing opportunities for travel 
and intercommunication, and the development of the his- 
torical point of view in the special sciences, In the nine- 
teenth century, came in time a new outlook on the world 
of human society finding expression in liberalism in re- 
ligion, an idea of progress in all branches of social en- 
deavor, and a new moral ideal. We so long ago lost the 
localism that went with the conception of the earth as the 
center of things that we take it for granted that existence 
means progress with infinite resources on which to draw. 
Almost every discipline has undergone change since the 
theory of evolution accustomed us to the idea of organic 
development. 

Growth.— We are not likely to lose any of our interest 
and enthusiasm for progress by pausing calmly to consider 
what we mean by progress, and to distinguish between 
assumption and intelligible conception. Progress can 
hardly be the same as organic growth by means of cells 
and tissues to reproduction of endless individuals of a 
species, essentially fixed in type. The attempt has been 
made to compare the successive changes through which a 
civilization passes to the childhood, youth, middle life, and 
decline of the human body, but this analogy has not carried 
very far. The growth of a tree, with some of its branches 
hanging down, while a few branches only appear at the 
top, has been moderately suggestive, in contrast with the 
assumption that progress always means upward growth. 
By mental growth has been understood multiplication and 
association of units, like atoms; but mental development is 
not so simple as associationist psychology would make out. 
The mind can keep on developing after the body has grown 


Moral Progress 4AW 


to full proportions and begun to wear out. Mental progress 
is a matter of insight, freedom, and productivity. 

Evolution.—It is easy to confuse evolution with 
progress, on the assumption that all evolution means 
‘‘continuous progressive change’’ due to inherent or im- 
manent forces essentially purposive in type.2 It has been 
found extremely difficult to defend the thesis that all 
nature exemplifies purpose, since the evolutionists called 
attention to the great struggles and losses of the animal 
and plant worlds. Evolution may, indeed, signify con- 
tinuous change in the sense of modifications due to response 
to environment. But finalism is as difficult to prove as 
absolute chance.2 On the whole evolution has been con- 
ceived as an automatic process, chiefly from lower to 
higher, but not necessarily from lowest to highest. Evo- 
lutionists are in the habit of beating down everything 
called higher to what is lower, of. minimizing quality in 
_ favor of quantity. They afford scant solace to the believer 
in moral progress. 

History. What does history show? That there has 
been progress on the whole? It may be so, but with great 
losses. Civilizations come and go, as in ancient Egypt and 
other lands bordering on the Mediterranean. There have 
been great flowering periods, and then lost arts, points of 
view, moral values. Was the change from Greek culture, 
art, and philosophy to Christian civilization wholly a 
progress? Have we after nineteen centuries succeeded in 
regaining all that the world lost by passing over to super- 
naturalism and eccleciastical authority? The changes in 
process in China seem on the whole to mean progress, how- 
beit the inheritors of many centuries of the moral idealism 
of peace are learning the arts of war from the Western 
world. The change from the despotism of the Czars to the 
despotism of the Soviets in Russia is widely heralded as 
progress. We are at least able to say that the given type 
of civilization fits the conditions and character of the 
people, as in ancient China, Egypt, and Greece. The ideals 


10f, J. Le Conte, Evolution and its Relation to Religious Thought. 
2Cf, Bergson, Creative Hvolution, trans., p. 39. 


448 The Moral Lafe 


of knighthood, Puritanism, and the like come and go, and 
leave their contributions. We have passed into the period 
of great mechanical inventions as if to a period where his- 
tory and progress are synonymous, but we too appear to 
have lost very much by becoming so greatly devoted to 
external values, more determined than ever to reduce all 
qualities into measurable things and statistical deeds. Wise 
philosophers of history, trying in vain to determine what 
progress means, or decide whether or not history means 
progress, have said in conclusion, at any rate there is 
change.* 

What Civilization Means.—Progress is plainly not an 
unfolding of what is all the while implicit by preéstablished 
harmony. It must add or contribute, differentiate or in- 
dividualize by developing new types, integrations, or 
values. It is not in any case something that goes on auto- 
matically or inevitably, as if struggle always signified bet- 
terment; for epochs of progress have been followed by long 
ages of stagnation or retrogression.* The disorders and 
reactions of history seem indeed fatal to a finalistic or tele- 
ological interpretation. If we regard civilization as in- 
herently valuable, we are frequently reminded of the fact 
that in many respects it is still an experiment, with pos- 
sibilities of collapse.6 During the World War it was often 
feared that civilization might be destroyed. We are slow 
to learn anything from history. And so we are slow in 
discovering what we mean by civilization and how to keep 
it. Hard upon an unsatisfactory treaty of peace, forced 
on the defeated nation, there follow new hatreds and 
schemings preparatory to the next armed conflict. We 
have repeatedly been disillusioned, when we cherished the 
hope that now at last the love of peace was established in 
the hearts of men. Nature has not proved to be wholly 
beneficent. Events, such as earthquakes in Sicily and 
Japan, floods in China, and famines in India, take place 
without regard to human welfare; and if there is ever to 


3 Cf. F. H. Bradley, Appearance and Reality, 1893, p. 499. 
4L. T. Hobhouse, Morals in Evolution, Vol. II, p. 280. 
5 B. M. Laing, op. cit., p. 29. 


Moral Progress 449 


be victory in these matters man must learn to build else- 
where, build more securely, and be far more provident and 
philanthropic. Progress depends then on human beings, 
and human beings are fertile in devices, ready to make new 
experiments, inventing new things that are inferior for the 
sake of change, prone to neglect what is best as history dis- 
closes it to us. Certain it is that the forces of history are 
not synonymous with progress. 

Our Spiritual Needs.—The old-time antithesis between 
spirit and flesh has not wholly disappeared. Mayhap this 
world was not made for progress any way. If for dis- 
eipline, that each soul may try out its forces and be sent 
back into itself to seek higher sources of consolation, then 
all that one would expect would be a changing historical 
scene amid essentially the same laws, conditions, and op- 
portunities. To have real spiritual progress on earth 
would be to deprive unborn generations of the opportunity 
to begin at the beginning; for we need to start in igno- 
rance, need to struggle from darkness into light, through 
failure and relative defeat. All material things, and espe- 
cially all fleshly things are disappointing. The earthly 
life is not permanent and can never become so. But this 
is pessimism once more. We have rejected it in a previous 
chapter. We have also set aside the view that: sin and 
evil are essential to the moral order. To be moral is to 
be bent on knowing and conquering the conditions of life. 
The human spirit is subject to conditions which make pos- 
sible its full development through mastery. With the 
attainment of perfect adjustment to nature’s forces and 
conditions, there would still be abundant opportunity for 
unborn generations, especially if we go on multiplying 
mechanical devices and increasing our material efficiency. 
Although there may be nothing inherent in natural con- 
ditions to guarantee the triumph of the higher type, man 
has the opportunity to increase moral values, and depend 
more on moral forees, where he now surrenders to material 
conditions. What is achieved in one epoch may become 
the starting-point for the next, when at last we are more 
serious in our effort to conserve moral values. 


450 The Moral Infe 


The Religious Horizon—We must agree then that the 
world needs something more than a soft gospel of inevi- 
table spiritual progress under remote conditions, chiefly in 
the future life. It needs salvation from its ignorance, its 
sin, its inefficiency, its apathy, its silly optimism, and ap- 
palling carelessness. Hope lies in our new scientific con- 
trol over the latent resources of the earth without and over 
our mental and moral forces within. We are committed 
to the hope of making progress the dominant idea. An 
immeasurable increase of man’s self-reliance is an effect of 
the idea of progress, confidence in humanity’s power to 
take care of itself. Hence, we see the abiding necessity of 
religion in a progressive world. ‘‘Jesus Christ .. . has given 
us the most glorious interpretation of life’s meaning that 
the sons of men have ever had. The fatherhood of God, 
the friendship of the Spirit, the sovereignty of righteous- 
ness, the law of love, the glory of service, the coming of the 
kingdom, the eternal hope.’’7 What we need is spiritual 
mastery of science’s new powers, that is, mastery by an- 
other kind of power which it is not the business of science 
to supply, spiritual power which ‘‘comes out of the soul’s 
deep fellowship with the living God.’’ Religion shows that 
life develops from within, with possibilities of changing 
human nature, the new birth being still essential. Spirit- 
ual development must accompany environmental change, 
but must reorganize social life and the ideas that underlie 
it. The great conflict is now centered in economics. 

Finality—We are coming to see that Christianity is 
a changing movement in a changing world. Christianity 
is no longer ‘‘passive submission to God’s will, but an 
aggressive prayer for the victory of God and righteousness 

. . active loyalty to the will of God as something to be 
achieved.’’® We now count it our duty to be ‘‘tirelessly 
unresigned.’’ Here is ‘‘a new mood in Christianity,’’ that 
is, a progressive movement instead of a static finality, a sys- 
tem of doctrines, defended as static in a progressive world. 


6H. E. Fosdick, Christianity and Progress, 1922, p. 40. 
7 Op. cit., p. 67. 
8 Ibid., p. 134. 


Moral Progress 451 


Even within the New Testament there is no static creed. 
Even the Fourth Gospel is a sermon, not a philosophy. 
Progress does not, however, shut out finality. It makes 
each new finality a point of departure for a new adven- 
ture.° While a revelation from God might conceivably be 
final and complete, religion as Fosdick regards it ‘‘deals 
with a revelation of God.’’ Discovery on man’s part is 
the under side of the process. Meanwhile, the idea of 
authority is one of the historic curses of religion: religion 
by its very nature is one of the realms to which external 
authority is least applicable. The one vital thing in re- 
ligion is first-hand, personal experience; religion is the 
most intimate, inward, incommunicable fellowship of the 
human soul, and the only God you ever will know is the 
God you know for yourself. 

Christianity as a Life.—It follows then that if the world 
had understood Christianity as Dr. Fosdick, among others, 
is interpreting it to us now, there might have been progress 
where there was delay for centuries during the long dis- 
putes of ecclesiastics. For, in Fosdick’s terms, the original 
Christian fellowship ‘‘consisted of a group of men keeping 
company with Jesus and learning how to live. They had 
no creeds to recite . . . no sacraments to distinguish their 
faith . . . no organization to join . . . Christianity in the 
beginning was an intensely personal experience.’’*° The 
ereeds, written in sheer self-defense at a later time, gave 
static shape to what was meant to be a life. ‘‘So historic 
Christianity grew, organized, creedalized, ritualized.’’ But 
as a first-hand, personal experience of God in Christ is 
‘falone vital in Christianity,’’ all the rest is once or twice 
or thrice removed from life: Christianity is not a creed, 
nor an organization, nor a ritual, but a life. We can not 
stereotype its expressions in set and final forms. When it 
once more becomes a life in fellowship with the living God 
it will build new organizations, expand into new symbolic 
expressions. Faith in God can indeed satisfy man’s erav- 
ing for spiritual stability amid change. The central ele- 


9 Ibid., p. 154. 
10 Ibid., p. 161. 


452 The Moral Ife 


ment in the conception of a progressive world is that 
‘‘men’s thoughts and lives have changed, are changing and 
will change,’’ that nothing is settled in the sense of being 
finally formulated.1 There are, indeed, desperate en- 
deavors, perennially made, to congeal the Christian move- 
ment at some one stage and to call that stage final. Against 
this they indeed protest who believe in the living God as 
disclosed through inner experience. 

Moral Advance as the Test.—What is here said about 
Christianity applies with great force to moral doctrines, 
too often the dry or crystallized expressions of theological 
conservatives, almost totally neglectful of the moral dyna- 
mic of the ages. We find scholars agreeing that moral 
progress is the test of all true progress, the true reading 
of history.1* The ethical motive is ‘‘the most constant and 
regulative force.’’ Moral progress constitutes ‘‘the very 
essence of the historic movement.’’ As Myers regards the 
subject, certain tendencies become characteristic among the 
nations, virtues develop and become standards or ideals for 
natural life and thought during ages. Comparison be- 
tween the virtues emphasized by the nations naturally fol- 
lows, norm is compared with norm, system with system. 
The result, for one thing, is the discovery of unevenness 
among the nations: where one excels, another lags. Mean- 
while, the ethical motive is becoming more dominant, dis- 
closing successive enlargements. In no domain has progress 
been greater than in the moral sphere. Here, indeed, is 
‘“the one increasing purpose’’ which runs through the ages. 
The standard to be employed in judging any civilization 
is the moral ideal, the group of virtues held in esteem by 
a given people or a given age, those moral incentives which 
have a unique dynamic force. 

How does this ethical progress proceed? Does it act 
through tradition, as Hobhouse suggests? +2 Hobhouse does 
not venture to say whether the actual improvement in our 
conduct is greater than we might expect or even as much 


11 Ibid., p. 207. 
12 Myers, op. cit., p. 1. 
13 Op. cit., p. 283. 


Moral Progréss 453 


as we might expect; he sees a prospect that further de- 
velopment of society may fall within the scope of an organ- 
izing intelligence, removed from the play of blind force. 
But the very ideas which are to direct this progress toward 
‘‘the sphere of rational order’’ are yet in their infancy. 
The promising fact is that there is a culminating self- 
consciousness, a blending of the moral, the scientific, and 
the religious. This, indeed, is the culminating fact of all 
ethical evolution. ‘‘Mind grasps the conditions of its de- 
velopment, that it may master and make use of them in its 
further growth.’’ We know little as yet about this growth. 
But we do know that this slowly wrought out dominance 
of mind in things is ‘‘the central fact of evolution.’’ 

What is the Moral Test.—Laing finds difficulty in dis- 
covering anything in morality by which progress can be 
tested, amidst the multiplicity of standards. Happiness or 
pleasure is difficult to gauge. There is no one bold enough 
to maintain that men have a greater sense of duty, more 
conscience, more self-sacrifice than in the Homeric age; 
more refined manners or greater courtesy than in the Mid- 
dle Ages. The emergence of new values is not a test, for 
example, the growing emphasis upon freedom, the aboli- 
tion of slavery, the greater respect for human life and 
property, the desire for more stable conditions of life, the 
recognition of personality and of the need of providing 
opportunities for its development, and the growing sense 
of brotherhood. For all these are values on which great 
emphasis was also placed in primitive tribal communities. 
They are not values freshly created but values revived, 
after a long period in which they were obscured amid social 
chaos. Moral progress ‘‘means something more than the 
consciousness and even the acknowledgment of abstract 
values.’’?4 It means ‘‘a new and concrete condition of 
human life.’? Hence the criticisms passed by laborites 
upon the present social organization. 

Slavery is apparently abolished only to give place to eco- 
nomic bondage. The existing industrial conditions deprive 
the worker of any freedom, they create as great a danger 


14 Op. cit., p. 262. 


ASA The Moral Life 


to health and life as ever existed in less civilized times. 
The struggle for existence has become keener with increas- 
ing industrial development. The old conditions exist 
under new forms. The attainment of some particular end 
desired is not an evidence of progress. Progress must be 
general, must imply the attainment of all or of the most 
desirable ends, not the attainment of one end at the ex- 
pense of another. Progress implies value, value is corre- 
lated with desire; while perfection, to be attained, involves 
control over conditions so that what is desirable can be 
attained free from any admixture of undesirable elements, 
and so that such a type of life can be preserved and made 
secure.t? What then is the totality of desirable things 
which has been or is being realized? lLaing’s results are 
typical of all moralists who, failing to interpret desire, 
can only say that desire is a process which ends in the 
realization of values ‘‘provided it is not interfered with 
by any other process.”’ 

Community of Interests as the Test.—The result is not 
much better when, with Perry, we regard morality as a 
concentration, and agree that ‘‘through morality a plur- 
ality of interests becomes an economy or community of in- 
terests,’’ hence that ‘‘only the fulfillment of an organiza- 
tion of interests is morally good.’’1® Progress is indeed 
an increase in the course of time of the value of life, what- 
ever that may be, a gain on the whole; but what shall be 
the measure of value? Not favorable environment, as 
Laing would doubtless say; for, as Perry well shows, un- 
favorable environments conduce to moral progress, it is 
‘‘the menace of nature’’ which stimulates progress.1” The 
tendency to develop coherence and unity, or rationality, 
is the one interna! principle of progress, through knowledge 
of the good, and the correction of existing usages. Perry’s 
test of moral progress therefore is: ‘‘the persistence 
through the whole course of human history of certain iden- 
tical interests and purposes,’’ for example, in such fixed 


15 Ibid., p. 267. 


16 R. B. Perry, The Moral Economy, 1909, pp. 18, 15. 
17 Ibid., p. 130. 


Moral Progress 455 


moral necessities as government, education, science, and 
religion. Each of these might indeed be regarded as sece- 
ondary tests of progress. But the primary difficulty with 
Perry’s term ‘‘interest’’ is the same as that which attaches 
to any general term, such as ‘‘loyalty.’’ From the point 
of view of any ethical theory, there is economy or com- 
munity of interests, moral integration or concentration. 
What is needed is an explicit statement of the content of 
moral interests. 

Moral Changes.—We have seen that moral development 
is not a question of transition from the non-moral to the 
moral; since man is from the first potentially moral, and 
the moral life is all the while supplied with content, as 
natural goodness becomes moral goodness through man’s 
reflective consciousness. The advance from custom to 
morality is in process all along the line of development. 
Different types of morality appear and then pass from the 
scene, as in the case of egoistic or psychological hedonism, 
epicureanism and cynicism. Within the field of a given 
moral interest there are indeed successive changes, hence 
a development of the implied principles toward their own 
completion. Thus there is a history of the pleasure-theory 
from the days of hedonism in its simplest form in Greece 
to the latest form of evolutionary hedonism and idealistic 
utilitarianism. But we must distinguish between develop- 
ment, history, and evolution in the moral field; and moral 
progress, with its estimates put upon various lines of de- 
velopment. Both Westermarck and MHobhouse exhibit 
‘‘morals in evolution,’’ but neither one offers a criterion 
of all moral progress. 

Nelf-discovery as the Test.—It might be said that the 
law of progress is ‘‘the progressive discovery of the indi- 
vidual.’’1® This is, indeed, an enlightening test; for, in 
Seth’s terms, the true nature of the individual answers 
to the true nature of society, with the self-discovery of the 
former comes the self-discovery of the latter; and we need 
not presuppose an original antagonism between egoism and 
altruism. We have noted many evidences of this advance, 

18 Seth, op. cit., p. 323, 


456 The Moral Life 


for example, the stage of moral integration attained when 
Confucius formulated the principle of reciprocity, when 
Socrates, reacting against the sheer individualism of the 
Sophists, made explicit the moral universal, as the basis 
for ethies, for the first time in history. Plato, we saw, 
tended to subordinate the individual to the state, and this 
point of view is still working itself out in moral history. 
The Stoics advanced a freer conception of the individual, 
in the direction of a city of God for all mankind. But it 
was Christianity which contributed the conception of hu- 
man personality as of supreme worth, both in this world 
and in the future life, including the uncultured and down- 
trodden, the freeman and the slave, and the poor as well 
as the rich. This conception has been tried out in various 
modes of social life in the intervening centuries until, to- 
day, the controversy in behalf of true individualism is 
highly complex and difficult to estimate. In the foregoing 
pages we have argued throughout for that individualism 
which is to be harmonious with social self-realization, we 
have placed much emphasis on self-knowledge, self-develop- 
ment, and self-expression. Hence, our whole inquiry has 
turned upon the progressive discovery of the individual. 
But in so far as this discovery may rightfully be taken 
as the law of moral progress it must be with most explicit 
recognition of the central moral truth which it is the object 
of this book to make clear, that is, that we are ‘‘members 
one of another’’ in a relationship symbolized by the or- 
ganism. 

The Law of Progress.—Looking back over the long 
ages of discovery of the worth of the individual, we must 
agree with Seth that there has been a recoil from one solu- 
tion of the problem to another, that no solution has proved 
final; but that ‘‘it belongs to the nature of progress that no 
solution will satisfy a later age which does not do full 
justice to, and rest upon a better understanding of the 
individual than any previous solution.’’!® The law of 
progress involves (1) a gradual transition from an external 
and utilitarian to an internal and spiritual estimate of 

19 Ibid., p. 330. 


Moral Progress 457 


action, with emphasis on character, on being rather than 
doing, on what a man is more than on what he is good for; 
hence the true criterion of virtue is internal and spiritual; 
(2) subordination of the sterner to the gentler virtues; and 
(3) imereasing scope, the change from particularism to 
universalism, from patriotism or nationalism to humanism 
or cosmopolitanism. But this progress is always likely to 
include competition as well as codperation, rivalry as well 
as love and mutual service, although the rivalry may be 
generous. 

social Equilibrium.—So, too, Mecklin holds that a 
conception of the equilibrium between the individual and 
society is the test of moral progress, with special reference 
to the richness and variety of the demands made upon men 
for social adjustment. The test of the truth of moral ideas 
must then be sought in the extent to which men in a given 
social situation are able to eliminate their differences and 
attain fruitful human relationships. ‘‘ Where we deal with 
active and intelligent wills every act, good or bad, brings 
about a need for readjustment....A community of 
active moral beings assures to us, therefore, a mobile rather 
than a static moral order. . . . Change is inherent in the 
very structure of the moral life... . On the heels of the 
good act completed rise new moral issues.’’ 7° 

Moral Betterment.—Alexander defines these moral 
issues making for progress with reference to the continuous 
variation and transmutation of morality from one form to 
another as the struggle between ideals proceeds.*? This 
continuous change is not identical with progress, but the 
clue is to be found in the process by which each indi- 
vidual approximates to the highest development and re- 
expresses the ideal. The good as the goal of this process 
is always ultimate, but owing to the development of human 
nature it is always in motion. For individuals in process 
of development it is not a question of relationship between 
the good as it is being realized and the best, but always a 
contrast between the good and a better. Progress from 


20 Introd. to Social Ethics, pp. 186, 188. 
21§, Alexander, Moral Order and Progress, 1889, p, 262, 


458 The Moral Lafe 


lower to higher does not necessitate finality or a highest, 
as if morality were sometime to pass away and give place 
to a different condition. The acts of adjustment by which 
individuals meet certain conditions alter the sentiments 
of the agents, and create new needs; and these new needs 
demand a new satisfaction. The persistence of the ideal 
through these successive changes reveals its own inade- 
quacy, the attainment of goodness extends the data and 
renders the former solution unavailable. What ‘‘is com- 
monly ealled the moral standard is a kind of generalization 
from the extremely various operations of different persons 
as to what is or is not right.’’ Chastity, courage, and 
temperance, for example, are general names which we 
retain although the conditions included under them may 
vary. The name employed signifies the continuity of tra- 
dition and the permanence of form, while the contents 
change from age to age. The forces at work are more 
constantly operative in changing the moral order than in 
maintaining it. Every good act alters the moral standard, 
and so ‘‘moral development is the history of human nature 
exhibited . . . as a Becoming.’’ *? 

Goodness and Its Conditions——There is real moral 
progress then, progressive goodness making in the direction 
of perfection, but our ideas of perfection change and so 
our conceptions of goodness change also. Morality pro- 
ceeds by ‘‘an oscillation of two movements, the one solv- 
ing the problem proposed, the other destroying each solu- 
tion as it emerges.’’ We look back to an exemplification 
of goodness in a citizen of ancient Greece, signalizing a 
man as good whose conduct we would condemn in part. 
The same would be true were we to compare a good man 
in England in the twelfth century with a good man in the 
nineteenth, although a good man in the nineteenth is no 
better than a good man in the twelfth. The relativity of 
goodness to its conditions instead of being a term of re- 
proach is in reality its highest praise. Conduct is good 
because appropriately related to its conditions. It is both 
good and inadequate. In brief, an ideal of good conduct, 

22 Ibid., p. 291. 


Moral Progress 459 


being a solution of its conditions, is eternally true for 
them; morality is identical or eternal in virtue of its form; 
there are ‘‘successive stages of one continuous law. Every 
ideal while giving place to a new one is the foundation of 
it. In creating a new standard we do not begin afresh, 
but at some point where the old was found insufficient. 
Progress is thus not mere destruction of the lower but 
fulfillment.’’ 7° 

Progress in Our Ideals.—Perhaps the best verification 
of these successive changes is in the fact that no one who 
is meeting life reflectively, who is aspiring, doing his best 
to serve, is able even to restate his ideal without modifying 
it. The spirit lives on, the expression of it in words and 
mental imagery changes, and every overt expression in 
deeds of service yields dissatisfaction, which, in turn, is 
a stimulus to further progress. Thus our ideals changed 
during the World War, and the expressions of virtue which 
served to hearten the men at the front were unsuited to 
the new conditions which came after the armistice. The 
men in action had an opportunity to rise to a supreme 
height of courage, energy, ideal response to duty; but when 
the war was over they could not again have been persuaded 
to give such an expression to their ideal. The martial 
virtues which were glorified, possibly for the last time in 
history, must change in their mode of expression still more 
if war shall cease and a full moral equivalent be substi- 
tuted. 

A moral tendency develops then, has its history and 
fruition, and passes from the scene, as Puritanism served 
its purpose for a time and ceased to be, as knighthood 
flourished and then disappeared. So Christianity allied 
itself with the martial virtues and developed for genera- 
tions, and now we are in process of separating these virtues 
from the Gospel, that we may try out the original Chris- 
tianity as a pure gospel of peace. We are convinced that 
there has been real moral progress as a result of our reac- 
tions against the World War, howbeit this is in part a 


23 Ibid., p. 295. 


460 The Moral Life 


matter of revival of values which have never been given 
adequate recognition by the world. 

wtatic and Dynamic Elements.—Any estimate of the 
ideals which have received varied recognition throughout 
the ages must take account of the fact, therefore, that we 
are always returning to neglected moral principles almost 
ignored for generations, and sometimes forgotten for cen- 
turies. The apparent progress made in European morals 
in the reaction from Greek ethical standards to the early 
Christian is viewed in a very different light today, endeav- 
oring aS we are to revive both the original Gospel and 
Greek ethical standards at their best. What might have 
been the progress of Christianity was sadly interfered 
with by the formalisms of ages of theology. What might 
have been the progress of Greek ethics was sadly interfered 
with by the circumstances under which Greck civilization 
was forced into decline. The struggle is between the dyna- 
mic and the static elements, the static is strongly en- 
trenched, and the dynamic must repeatedly disclose the 
lost arts anew. For us today, the Golden Age is in the 
future. Yet we are all the while constructing it by re- 
covering neglected moral values which attributed perfec- 
tion to the past. 

National Ideals.—Each moral ideal is indeed a species, 
perfect after its own kind as Alexander shows in behalf 
of general principles,** and as Myers shows by summariz- 
ing in the ease of each nation the elements which econsti- 
tute the given ideal. Myers’ results might be generalized 
by saying that as the individual ideal culminates in self- 
realization so the national ideal culminates in national 
self-realization. What Myers advises for the individual, 
namely, ‘‘Do the thing thou seest to be good; realize thy 
ideal,’’?° might be applied to all the nations: ‘‘ Realize 
your type, be loyal to your standards of virtue unto the 
end.’’ For according to Myers moral character is not de- 
termined by the ideal of conduct but ‘‘by the way this 
ideal is lived up to,’’ hence, ‘‘by the effort put forth in 


24 Op. cit., p. 369. 
25 Op. cit., p. 10. 


Moral Progress 461 


the direction of achieving the national type.’’ In estimat- 
ing the contributions of the nations to universal morality, 
we should judge therefore, not by this or that formulation 
of the ideal at any given time, but by the achieving spirit 
of the people during long periods. 

Progress in the Social Conscience.—Goodness in this 
sense may confidently be said to be progressive. The al- 
ternative to goodness is wickedness, retrogression or stag- 
nation. The moral spirit does run into its opposite, but 
external conditions become at times utterly unfavorable, 
as when by force of arms Rome conquered Greece. In the 
actual course of expression of the moral spirit the change 
is from one form to another, from what is right under one 
set of conditions to what is right under another. Thus it 
ceases to be right to hold captives taken in war as slaves, 
or to enslave negroes, although it may still be permissible 
to enslave woman, to compel men to make war, or to in- 
dulge in industrial slavery. While we may be no more 
conscientious than were the ancient Spartans who aban- 
doned their weaklings, the non-Christian peoples who per- 
secuted the early Christians, or the later Christians who 
indulged in the inquisition, there has certainly been marked 
progress in the social conscience, as one practice after an- 
other has been brought forth into the light for condemna- 
tion. The evils we tolerate may often be greater than 
those that were ignored of old. But the social conscience, 
with its modern means of enlightenment through the rapid 
gathering and distribution of information, is swiftly pass- 
ing judgments where moral consciousness once lagged. 
Where it was once a question of moral progress within a 
nation in relative isolation, surpassing its neighbors in 
some respects, falling below them in others, it is now more 
truly a question of world progress. 

Alexander’s Definition of Progress.—Progress is de- 
fined by Alexander as ‘‘the direction in which all the forces 
acting within and upon a society dispose it to move, so 
as to maintain its equilibrium.’’?° This definition does 
not imply the notion that ‘‘whatever is, is right’’; but that 

26 Ibid., p. 330. 


462 The Moral Life 


“‘wherever right is, there is progress.’’ The main course 
of progress is not linear, or in one continuous direction. 
Mere differentiation is insufficient to define progress. 
There is also integration. Sometimes there is simplifi- 
cation. Christianity introduced a principle of life simpler 
than the duty of Greek to Greek, or Roman to Roman; it 
obliterated national distinctions and decreased diversity. 
Differentiation, for example, tells us nothing of the forces 
by which progress is produced, and gives no connected view 
of the actual facts of historical development. The clas- 
sification and description of institutions and duties will 
differ with each age, therefore it is vain to map out a 
scheme of morality for all eternity: as the ideal changes,’ 
the highest moral sentiment will change with it.?”7 To the 
ancient Greek, for example, the highest moral conception 
was the fitting, the proper, the just, and the beautiful. 
But obedience to law was highest for the Jew, and the 
claims of duty for the Christian. 

The Productive Principle.—We have tried in the fore- 
going chapters to bring the conceptions of goodness, duty, 
moral law, freedom, conscience, and virtue into as close 
relation as possible. Yet we must, with Alexander, leave 
abundant room for moral changes, while putting in clear- 
est relief the moral constant which persists through them 
all. We must agree also with the conclusion that no form- 
ulation of the ideal is final. What is worthy of strongest 
emphasis in the theories of moral progress we have passed 
in review is the productive principle which leaves its suc- 
cessive crystallizations in the moral order as a whole. 
Scholars hesitate to say that mankind as a whole is surely 
moving towards one universal end.28 We lack the requi- 
site ‘‘systematic theory of moral values educed, by con- 
structive analysis, from the systematic study of the moral 
history of humanity.’’ We have not yet attained ‘‘the 
historically grounded and systematically organized doctrine 
of ethical value-judgments’’ wherewith to estimate con- 
temporary society, a society still in transition. The Ori- 


27 Ibid., p. 401. 
28 Leighton, op. cit., p. 500. 


Moral Progress 463 


ental and Occidental civilizations are now in closer contact, 
but what is to be the issue of this meeting? Can it be said 
that we have ethically mastered ‘‘the vast industrial mech- 
anism’’ which we have invoked from the forces of nature 
to do our bidding? Are the intervening generations mere 
‘‘hewers of wood and drawers of water’’ to serve the wel- 
fare of the final and happy one? ‘The final resource, if 
we would maintain the thesis of moral progress, is to de- 
clare, with Seth, that the worth of the individual in the 
inner life, in character rather than in what a man does 
in overt conduct, is the real test or criterion of progress. 
It is ‘‘the individual life which alone feels, thinks and 
wills, alone knows the bitterness of defeat, the joy of 
achievement, alone feels the sorrow and the happiness of 
the common lot, is the actual agent and embodiment of 
ethical values.’’ 2° Religious faith accomplishes for us what 
knowledge of moral history fails to yield as yet, namely, 
‘‘eonsecration of the highest human values,’’ the affirma- 
tion that these values are ‘‘integral constituents in, or 
essential qualities’’ of the universal and enduring order; 
that ‘‘the higher meanings and purposes of the human 
spirit are blood kin to the supreme meaning and purpose 
of life.’’ 


REFERENCES 


Mackenziz, J. S., Manual of Ethics, Bk. III, Chap. VII. 

SetH, J., Ethical Principles, Part II, Chap. III. 

Myers, P. V. N., History as Past Ethics, Chap. XVIII. 

ALEXANDER, S., Moral Order and Progress, 1889. 

LricuTon, J. A., The Field of Philosophy, 1923, Chap. XXVIII 
(bibliography, p. 511). 

Fospick, H. E., Christianity and Progress, 1922. 

Hosnovse, L. T., Morals in Evolution, 1906, Vol. II. 

Dresser, H. W., Psychology in Theory and Application, Chap. 
XXXV. 

Topp, A. J., Theories of Social Progress, 1918. 

Mecxkun, J. M., Introduction to Social Ethics, Chap. XI. 


29 Leighton, op. cit., p. 502. 


CHAPTER XXVIII 
ETHICS AND RELIGION 


Points of Resemblance.—It is not easy to draw sharp 
distinctions between ethics and religion. The two are one 
in marked respects. Every religious system involves ethical 
principles. Some of. the greater ethical principles as 
definitely involve religious teachings. It ean not truly be 
said that religion is the parent of morality. Nor do ethical 
teachings necessarily lead to religion. A moral code and 
a religious view of life may coincide at significant points, 
and the sanctions of the one may be the sanctions of the 
other. Religion would be nothing without the righteous 
life which gives evidence that it is genuine, and righteous 
conduct yields incentives for the development of moral 
theory. One ean neither agree with those ethical leaders 
who separate ethics as distinctively as possible from re- 
ligious objects, sources, and interests; nor with partisans 
of religion who so strongly insist on their particular system 
of theology as the basis for ethics that they put ethical 
principles in a subordinate place. Our best course is to 
maintain that religion and ethies belong intrinsically to- 
gether, with factors that occasionally interact, and with 
activities that at times fuse with one another and move 
forward in a single stream.t If at other times they part, 
they retain their mutual influences, and the distinctions 
we draw between then point forward to reconsideration of 
their relationships. 

The Problem of Loyalty.—The only ethical instructions 
many of us receive are given under religious auspices. 
Few people ever undertake to separate out the theological 
elements of their faith, to consider what ethical principles 
they have acquired, or to discriminate between moral au- 

1Cf. Hobhouse, Morals in Evolution, Vol. II, p. 2, note. 

464 


Ethics and Religion 465 


thority and the authority of the creed which they have 
adopted. It has long been customary in Christian circles 
to try to do right because the Bible says so, because it is 
taught by leaders of the Church. It does not occur to 
the average believer to consider whether alien moral teach- 
ings have been introduced into Christianity at some period 
of history or by some one in authority, to the disad- 
vantage of the original ethical teachings of the Gospels. 
To adopt the religion of authority is to put a theological 
system in the first rank, to regard its sanctions as final; 
hence to rule out inquiries which might be profoundly 
enlightening from an ethical point of view. Loyalty to 
the system is put first, at the expense of loyalty to truth 
and to progress in knowledge concerning other peoples, 
other systems, other sacred books. Yet this larger vision 
might be gained without in any way sacrificing loyalty 
to the Christian faith. 

The result is often intolerance, sometimes persecution, 
if not coercion; and controversies arise which obscure real 
issues in favor of points of doctrine of no real moment. 
But such controversies are often primarily ethical, rather 
than theological. It becomes a question of what one ought 
to believe, of one’s duty regarding the creed or sect; one’s 
attitude toward science, biblical criticism, and the modern 
outlook on life in general. It is sometimes ethical prin- 
ciples which decide whether or not a religious dogma makes 
any difference to life or conduct, rather than the argu- 
ments for or against the dogma itself. If it appears that 
one can be an equally good Christian by regarding the 
dogma as either essential or non-essential, the question 
arises once more, What ethical principles are essential to 
the Christian faith and life? Again, if we find points of 
ethical identity and resemblance between the great reli- 
gions of the world, or between different sects within one 
of the chief living religions, we have good reason for main- 
taining that it is on the ethical side, not the theological, 
that religions will find their meeting-points; that it will 
be in terms of life, not by identity of doctrine, that the 
religious peoples of the world will finally come together. 


466 The Moral Infe 


Priority of Experience as a Clue.—It is plain that the 
question of inter-relationship is not to be settled by appeal 
to origins; for the beginnings of both religion and ethics 
are crude, and we are concerned to know how far each is 
valid.2, The problem of the original authority and method 
of acquiring religious doctrines enters the case only on 
the assumption that the sacred books in which the doctrines 
are found were given by revelation, on the mechanical 
theory, that is, dictation word by word, so that the text 
is regarded as inerrant. On such a view the doctrines are 
infallible, without discrimination in favor of degrees of 
inspiration ; and the idea of the supernatural or miraculous 
plays a constant part. A certain sectarian interpretation 
of the Bible is then put above the researches and conclu- 
sions of biblical scholars, and the authority of the Scrip- 
tures is beyond appeal save through allegiance to the 
Church. But on the so-called dynamic view of revelation 
and inspiration the human factors of the process of receiv- 
ing divine truth are taken into account, revelation is then 
said to make its progressive appeal to human intelligence, 
inspiration is not by miracle, and the text is regarded as 
divine-human rather than merely divine. This view ac- 
cords with ethics on the ground that experience, both 
moral and religious, is prior to doctrine, that man becomes 
aware of inner needs of the spirit, and of values which 
in a measure meet these needs, before he adopts either 
codes of morals or systematic views concerning the deity, 
the soul, and the future life. An ethical principle or spir- 
itual teaching is not then said to be true merely or solely 
because it is in the Bible, but also because reason and 
practice find it true, and comparative study of the world’s 
great religions shows it to be universal. 

Theology as a Sign.—Ethics is a science, dependent on 
philosophy rather than on theology; on the data of the 
natural sciences rather than on the Church, with its creeds, 
officials, and sacred books. Moral science implies reasoned 
principles developed by analysis of the inner life, and by 
study of the evolution of moral tendencies among nations 


2See Palmer, The Field of Ethics, p. 136. 


Ethics and Religion 467 


investigated as freely as any other conceptions are studied. 
Reason in the sphere of ethics possesses the same freedom 
to follow truth wherever it may lead which we grant to 
any special science, including mathematics. It is not 
necessary to make the implied philosophy explicit in all 
its bearings, but the usual conviction is that ethical truth 
and reality pertain to the ultimate nature of things, that 
the moral order is part of the cosmic order. Religion in 
its most intelligible forms may be said to imply a science 
in the same way, that is, by appeal to the history of the 
great faiths of the world, by aid of psychology, and in 
as far as theology becomes philosophy. For religion has 
often been defined with respect to the attitude which man 
takes toward the universe, his emotional response, and 
the mode of life to which the cosmic emotion leads. Thus 
at the top religion and ethics might draw together in clos- 
est unity. But religion is frequently identified with a 
theology accepted on authority, not arrived at by begin- 
ning with the data of human experience in its fullness 
and adopting those principles which accurately described 
facts of experience demand. Thus the religion of authority 
may look askance at modern knowledge, may take alarm 
when ethical teachings are grounded in human reason and 
experience. Meanwhile, the religion of the spirit is apt 
to be in fullest accord with ethical idealism. From this 
point of view it is well understood that neither intuition 
nor conscience discloses a different type of knowledge, not 
even in the ease of revelation; but that there are ascending 
degrees of moral and religious experience, intuitions, judg- 
ments in the name of conscience, with which the mind 
associates higher truths and greater values. 

Precepts as the Test.—If the laws of morality are said 
to be laws of God, this is a question of the divine sanction, 
an added interpretation. The field which ethics and re- 
ligion share is so rich that it needs to be cultivated in the 
two ways. Theologically speaking, the ethics of Jesus, for 
example, are inseparable from a view of the nature and 
origin of the authority attributed to Jesus. But from an 
ethical point of view the implied principles may be singled 


468 The Moral Infe 


out of the recorded teachings of the Gospels and compared, 
for instance, with the ethics of Buddhism, apart from the 
sharp contrast usually noted between (1) the Chris- 
tian conceptions of the Father, the human spirit, and 
heaven; and (2) Buddhistic teachings in regard to 
Karma (the persistence of moral deeds, rather than the 
persistence of personality) and the possibility of overcom- 
ing all desires in order that Nirvana (freedom from desires 
and incarnations) may be attained. The Christian is apt 
to assume that if true knowledge of God is lacking in any 
ethical system, such as Buddhism or Confucianism, its 
precepts will be inferior, its consequences more or less 
degrading. But comparison between the great ethical 
systems does not sustain this assumption.* Yet no dis- 
paragement of Christianity as religion is implied in the 
discovery that sometimes the precepts of Jesus have been 
anticipated, or that in some respects morality in India or 
China has surpassed that of the Christian world. Ethics 
as a science rather than as an argument for a given religion 
is concerned with the truth of moral teachings, their hold 
upon humanity, their results as disclosed by history, when- 
ever they have appeared, and whatever the auspices. Hach 
precept may indeed be investigated by itself, notably in 
the case of the doctrine of the higher resistance (love 
conquering hate) so often taken negatively as mere non- 
resistance, or interpreted both in India and among Chris- 
tian peoples in the monastic period in terms of a negative 
or ascetic view of self-sacrifice. 

Religious Realities.—Religion involves at least three 
elements: (1) belief in a Supreme Reality or God regarded 
as the source of all goodness, power, wisdom, love; to- 
gether with beliefs which follow from this concerning the 
reality of the human spirit, the future life, heaven; (2) 
inner experience taken to be supreme or decisive in value, 
and implying certain responses to the Supreme Reality, 
such as prayer, worship; and (3) a mode of conduct or life 
arising from this quickened inner experience and mani- 


3See Hume, The World’s Living Religions, Chap. IV. 


Ethics and Religion 469 


festing itself in a distinctive attitude toward the world, 
toward people, yielding evidences of the realities of faith 
and experience, for example, a conviction that God as 
immanent Presence guides, governs, or sustains. In brief 
there is conviction or judgment in regard to the highest 
values in life, their sources, their power, and the results 
to be anticipated from fidelity to these.* Religion, by con- 
trast, implies recognition of failures, dissatisfactions, dis- 
cords in the usual life of allegiance to material things; 
disappointment with one’s own lesser conduct; and aspira- 
tion to live a bettered life in cooperation with the life, love 
or wisdom springing from the divine source. Religion in 
its best estate is not departmental, but touches the whole 
of life, appealing to man to manifest the highest that is 
in him, as in its turn a manifestation of the divine pres- 
ence. In so far as religion thus becomes a ‘‘total attitude 
of the spirit,’’ it yields the supreme test or criterion. What 
had previously been a theory becomes a conviction, what 
had been cautiously accepted as knowledge, becomes a 
penetrating faith, while the ensuing conduct is the final 
evidence of the quality of this inward change. It is not 
necessary for our present purposes to consider what one 
of the elements of religion is prior. What signifies is the 
ideal of the fullness of life, with the emotional, intellectual, 
and volitional consequences which spring from this real- 
ization. 

Granted then the enlarged horizon, due to the cosmic 
emotion and ‘‘the sense of dependence’’® on God which 
man feels in his weakness in the presence of the problems 
of life, morality may be said to look to religion not only 
for horizon and hope, but also in man’s yearning for the 
divine love. Here love of God and duty may coincide, and 
in Jesus’ criticism of the Ten Commandments we come in 
sight of the unity of virtue, in that love which is the ful- 
filling of the law.* In this sense morality is incapable of 
completion without religion. ‘‘In the eall for help,’’ says 


4Of, J. A. Leighton, Religion and the Mind of To-day, 1924, p. 4. 
5 For definitions, see Hume, op. cit., p. 5. 
6 Palmer, The Field of Ethics, p. 142. 


470 The Moral Lrfe 


Palmer, ‘‘we reach the clearest consciousness of God.”’ ' 
In our reverential love for possible greatness as mani- 
fested in a supreme personality we attain a height which 
is indeed far above us so long as we dwell on moral pro- 
cesses in the thick of things, where we seem ‘‘born for 
trouble,’’ where vice may come in if religion wanes, where 
religion itself is sensibly dependent on morality. 

The Element of Controversy.—When, however, the- 
ology intervenes to sustain by argument what can not be 
proved by present fact or history, religion and ethics part 
company. Thus Augustine, in his assertion of the fall 
of man and its consequences, created facts to suit theory. 
So, too, Calvin introduced his view of predestination, to 
make good the glory of God. In our day, bishops have 
asserted that facts concerning the virgin birth, for in- 
stance, are created by the creed, that churchmen are bound 
by their vows to teach what is in the creed because it is 
in the creed, even though the doctrine in question may not 
be established by the Scriptures. The student of ethics 
is concerned to ascertain what actually happened in the 
course of history, not what ‘‘must have happened’’ be- 
cause its asserted existence is needed to prove a creed. 

Yet a controversy over points of doctrine becomes ethical 
rather than theological, the moment the question of values 
becomes paramount. For the term value is apt to be 
ambiguous in ecclesiastical circles. It may serve to con- 
note those surpassing realities of the religious life which 
no words of ours can do more than suggest, those values 
which we enter into by the aid of poetry and music, which 
uplift us in heart and will in our worship. Thus the 
enlightened believer may sincerely assign the highest place 
to the eternal values, realizing that no mere explanation 
will ever take the place of appreciation. But the liberal 
may conceal his progressive views under the term ‘‘value,’’ 
while the agnostic may allege that hymns and creeds which 
are antiquated in sentiment, doctrine, and phraseology are 
still useful as ‘‘values for worship.’’ 


7 Ibid., p. 150. 
8 Dresser, Psychology in Theory and Application, p. 703, 


Ethics and Religion 471 


Liberalism.—When, therefore, the bishops insist that 
the entire creed shall be taken literally or not at all, that 
the term ‘‘symbol’’ connotes dishonesty, the issue becomes 
plainly a matter of conscience. If the liberal remains in 
orthodox circles, he is likely to be regarded as insincere, 
if not a heretic, as cloaking his heterodoxy under a verbal 
device. But he may see his way to a solution on ethical 
grounds by distinguishing between static and dynamic con- 
ceptions of both religion and ethics: the static individual 
is one who conservatively defends the original wording of 
a creed or theological system, while the dynamic leader 
is one who, realizing that values always surpass formulas 
and are subject to growth with increase of spiritual life, 
favors renewed expressions of the eternal verities.° The 
liberal may, therefore, insist that the conservative has no 
right to rule out that freer, progressive interpretation 
which seeks to be loyal to what is universal or permanent 
in religion and ethics, in contrast with elements regarded 
as particular, transient or non-essential. He holds too 
that an endeavor to follow the spirit of truth is of more sig- 
nificance than a vow to sustain a ereed subject to varied 
interpretations and likely to be outgrown. It is often then 
a question of relative loyalties: what ought I to do as a 
religious teacher? What place does belief occupy? To 
what extent does one owe loyalty to ‘‘the church invisible’’ 
rather than to the established Church? What motive in- 
volves an appeal to a principle or idea; regarded as ‘‘trans- 
cending human purposes and as deriving its validity from 
an all-inclusive meaning’’? 1° 

Contacts and Divergencies.—Is man when especially 
religious peculiarly moral? .When most moral is man also 
especially religious? Palmer thinks the evidences point to 
the contrary.1+ There are people who are very religious 
in the emotional sense whom we should not be quite will- 
ing to trust. The moral view of life is on the whole man- 
ward, while the religious view is Godward.?? The religious 


9 Cf, Fosdick, Christianity and Progress, p. 207. 

10 See Everett, Moral Values, p. 389. 

11 The Field of Ethics, p. 172. 

12 Ibid., p. 175; see, also, Everett, op. cit., p. 380. 


472 The Moral Lafe 


soul seeks for God as all in all, while man in his essentially 
moral interests is always thinking of matters limited in 
space and time, in scope and consequences. Thus religion 
and ethics may be in closest alliance, the moral life sup- 
plying the opportunities for service in an intimately prac- 
tical way; while religion gives not only a wider horizon, 
and greater stability, but a hope at the point where the 
world is especially discouraging. In Palmer’s view this 
hope finds its realization in the gospel of the abundant life 
taught by Jesus. 

In Everett’s view, ethical conceptions are likely to di- 
verge more emphatically from religious doctrines in so far 
as other-world doctrines hostile to life in this world inter- 
vene.*® There is then a conflict of values, as if the real 
interests of this life could rightfully dictate one mode of 
conduct, while another mode pertains to the future life. 
The presumption is wholly in favor, ethically speaking, of 
a continuity of values with those of the present order, 
since we have no evidence of discontinuity. ‘‘As all pos- 
sible knowledge of values is derived from experiences of 
the present life, no other world can prescribe standards of 
value to this world. In our highest endeavors after a 
truly spiritual life it still holds good that we must ‘live 
by realities.’ Dualism in values ignores the fact that every 
attempt to represent to ourselves the values of another 
sphere of life is based upon actual experiences here and 
now.’’'4 We part company then, as ethical idealists, 
with any religious conception which undertakes to pass 
judgment on present conduct in terms of a system of 
future rewards and punishments, also any religious pes- 
simism which involves ‘‘a sense of human helplessness and 
of the illusory and worthless character of earthly experi- 
ence.’’ 

Ethics as the Criterion.—F or us the worth of life is a 
cardinal proposition. There is a widespread critical re- 
action in our day against the assumption that super- 
natural forces direct man’s fate. If religion is to indicate 


13 Op. cit., p. 399. 
14 Ibid., p. 400. 


Ethics and Religion 473 


the highest ends of thinking and willing, to set up the 
highest standards or patterns, this must be done, so we 
now insist, by means of a different view of the spiritual 
life, based on an immanent teleology. Only thus, by de- 
veloping a dynamic conception, and avoiding the pitfalls 
of a static creed, is religion likely to keep pace with our 
progressing ethical conceptions. Hoffding has put forward 
a strong plea for a more soundly ethical religion, on a 
philosophic basis.1° Thus approached, it is seen that re- 
ligion advances with the growth of man’s aims, and it is 
plainly ‘‘impossible for man to conceive of divine capaci- 
ties and wishes which he himself has never experienced in 
any degree.’’ 7° The transition from natural to ethical re- 
ligions is the most important transition in the whole history 
of religion. Thus in time it is seen that good is not good 
because God wills it, but that God wills the good because 
it is good; ‘‘he who is just because the God in whom he 
believes is just, must attribute value to justice itself.’’ 2” 
And this is why it is clearly seen at least that values must 
be discovered and produced in the world of experience 
before they can be said to exist in another world. So, too, 
‘‘the criterion of the value of religion and of its signifi- 
cance as an expression of spiritual culture must ultimately 
be an ethical one.’’1® It is ethics then which shows how 
far and in what way the nature of man is developed by 
means of spiritual culture, although it is religion which 
yields a motive for action of very great consequence. One 
agrees with Hoffding then, that it is not a sufficient justi- 
fication of a religious motive that it is an expression of a 
man’s personality, for religious motives should be tested 
in every possible way. In the last analysis, therefore, 
motives would be ruled out which flourish at the cost of 
love of truth, which hide under ambiguous verbal subtle- 
ties. And if ethics and religion finally coincide it will be 
because there is ‘‘a profound conviction that there is a 
value which must be maintained as the highest.’’ 
15 The Philosophy of Religion, trans., Chap. IV. 


16 Ibid., p. 324. 17 [bid., p. 329. 
18 [bid., p. 332. 


474, The Moral Life 


If however we say, with Leighton, that ethics is ‘‘the 
doctrine of the good, of the Supreme Values of Life,’’ ?* 
we may agree that religion is ‘‘the faith that these values 
are eternally realized in the Supreme Reality, that God 
is the Perfect Fulfillment’’; and so we may find complete 
harmony between our ethical and religious conceptions. 
We have contended for the position that ethics is not 
alone ‘‘the doctrine’’ but is inseparable from the moral 
life which follows on the part of all who are in earnest, 
and we have found that even a relatively impersonal 
morality, such as Stoicism, becomes a religion when the 
element of duty is discerned. Thus morality passes over 
into religion unless, perchance, as in some ethical culture 
movements, the element of worship is kept out and agnos- 
ticism intervenes. Religion and ethics unite in emphasizing 
‘‘the supreme worth and reality of the individual soul, the 
moral freedom and responsibility of the self.’’ 2° And in 
this intimate alliance with religion morality avoids any 
suspicion that the ideal of self-realization is in any sense a 
merely cultural ideal without the impetus to the life of 
service. To regard God as the Perfect Individual ‘‘ because 
he is wholly and completely social,’’ because he cares for 
all and gives of his life without stint, is to find the moral 
ideal transfigured by the highest standard of fellowship. 

Creeds as Fetters.—It is important to distinguish (1) 
the inner experience which yields such convictions and 
shows the unity between ethics and religion from (2) the 
interpretations put upon it which make formal matters 
paramount. For if religion is to yield horizon and give 
hope, it must be as a life, an experience which is closely 
akin to morality as an art. In fact religion and morality 
might have been developed as the art of life, might have 
been one in spirit and method all along the line had it not 
been for the imposition of authoritative systems on the 
facts of experience. Havelock Ellis has a graphic way 
of putting this matter: ‘‘It is only too familiar a fact 
how, when the impulse of religion first germinates in the 


19 Op. cit., p. 5. 
20 Leighton, ibid., p. 123. 


Ethics and Religion 475 


young soul, the ghouls of the Churches rush out and pro- 
ceed to assure him that his rapture is, not a natural mani- 
festation, as free as the sunlight and as gracious as the 
unfolding of a rose, but the manifest sign that he has been 
branded by a supernatural force and fettered forever to 
a dead theological creed. Too often he is thus caught by 
the bait of his own rapture; the hook is firmly fixed in his 
jaw and he is drawn whither his blind guides will; his 
wings droop and fall away; so far as the finer issues of 
life are concerned, he is doomed and damned.’’ *? 
Religion as Life.—Hllis regards religion as ‘‘the art of 
finding our emotional relationship to the world conceived 
as a whole.’’?? Its core is mysticism, in the sense of an 
advance beyond the individual’s personal ends to an ad- 
justment to larger ends, through harmony with the Whole, 
through devotion or love. Such mysticism is an art, and 
one that is in perfect accord with science at its best. To 
see this deep-lying unity, at this late day in human history, 
is to clear away all the accumulated superstitions, the un- 
reasoned prepossessions, on either side; and to see that the 
development of the religious instinct and the development 
of the scientific instinct are alike natural.?? It is the fig- 
ments of our thought which have obscured the simple 
realities, our timid dread lest religion should kill our science 
or science kill religion. In contrast with all this artificial- 
ity, is the real essence of religion, coming as the revela- 
tion of a new life springing up from within; a simple 
process, a natural function, an art which nature makes. 
The Content of Religion.—To follow this clue is to re- 
alize afresh that religion appeals to various elements of 
our nature: It touches the emotions and hence quickens 
in us the process which Ellis calls mystical. It appeals 
to the heart, with sympathy and compassion, and so dis- 
closes the service motive. It arouses the understanding 
to consideration of the great ideas—the idea of God, of the 
human spirit, of immortality, and the relation of man as 
21 The Dance of Life, 1923, p. 227, 


22 Ibid., p. 191. 
23 Ibid., p. 226. 


476 The Moral Life 


person to the divine personality—and so it may lead to a 
quickening intellectual development, if thought is not 
checked by servitude to ecclesiastical authority. It appeals 
to the will to go forth and live by the heart’s promptings, 
to lead the life of service which accords with the thought 
of God, so that love toward God and man shall be the 
reigning motive. It involves worship, meditation, prayer; 
so it is in large measure for the sake of the inner life of 
the individual, and hence religion may take on highly sub- 
jective forms. But its appeal is also to objective stand- 
ards, to a God who is above all, is for all in the larger 
cosmos of a social order, where the test is not what a man 
feels and thinks but also what he does as an effective mem- 
ber of the community. Religion leads to the idea of the 
beloved community in so far as it passes beyond mere 
motives of salvation, and by leading to the beloved com- 
munity it yields vision and power to ethics. 

The Contributions of Christianity—Comparison be- 
tween ethics and religion becomes more specific when we 
consider the ethics of Christianity from typical points of 
view, since for many of us religion and Christianity are 
identical. The conclusions of Hobhouse are negative; for 
he identifies Christianity with a life which might be lived 
for a time by a selected brotherhood of perfect men and 
women, with no rule of life applicable to a world in which 
people are far from perfect.24 According to Bowne, the 
significance of Christianity lies less in the field of moral 
judgments and more in the conceptions which condition 
their application in moral relationships.2®> The moral na- 
ture is not transformed by this teaching, but the condi- 
tions of its best unfolding have been furnished, so that 
although the same life is lived it has very different rela- 
tions and meanings. For example, the conceptions of God, 
life, and death are greatly clarified; moral principles are 
greatly extended, the sense of obligation is reinforced; 
inalienable sacredness is given to the origin and destiny 
of man, all men are regarded as children of a common 


24 Morals in Evolution, Vol. II, p. 152. 
25 B. P. Bowne, The Principles of Ethics, 1892, p. 201. 


Ethics and Religion ATT 


Father and heirs of eternal life. It now becomes a question 
of seeking first the kingdom of God and its righteousness. 
There is seen to be a moral kingdom stretching over all 
worlds and ages. The moral law is seen as not merely 
an expression of fact but also of the divine will. Hence 
its triumph is seen as secure: the universe and God are seen 
to be on the side of righteousness. A transcendent personal 
ideal is set up—the master-light of all our moral seeing and 
our chief inspiration. Rights grow more sacred, duties 
enlarge. Love and loyalty to a person take the place of 
reverence for an abstract law, and this consciousness is 
vastly more effective, is of incalculable significance for 
the moral life. Man is now explicitly seen as of divine par- 
entage and divine destiny. Implied in the Christian con- 
ception of God is the conviction that the moral essence is 
the same in God and man: hence later conceptions of Chris- 
tianity have rejected the view that the divine will is exalted 
above the divine goodness, as if right and wrong had been 
ereated by the will of God. 

The Christian Type.—This more intelligible ethical 
conception also finds expression in the summary of the 
philosophical postulates of Christian ethics given by New- 
man Smyth.?° Human nature is constituted for moral life, 
involves the idea of moral obligation, the authority of con- 
science: the ought is a moral constant of the universe ;?7 
it is essential to the nature of God. If it were not God’s 
eternal nature, it would not be our absolute obligation. 
Moral sovereignty is the sole sovereignty. Life without an 
ideal is unmoral; we are distinguished from the brute 
creation by this power of forming ideals. 

What is the best object then according to the Christian 
for which a man may live? The ideal has been given his- 
torically in the Person of Christ, the real example of it; 
it has been mediated through the Christian life and testi- 
mony which the Master’s coming and the divine spirit have 
ealled forth and inspired. It is partly realized in Christian 
history, and is still further to be interpreted. Jesus was 


26 Christian Ethics, 1892, p. 26, 
27 Ibid., p. 45. 


478 The Moral Infe 


both an original and originative moral power. He brought 
in a changed conception, a new type of virtue: the Chris- 
tian character is a distinct moral type. His moral ideal 
is disclosed in the doctrine of the kingdom of God, the 
kingdom as here. His doctrine of the supreme good is 
personal, The kingdom is constituted of persons: the full- 
ness and completeness of personal relationships, including 
holiness, righteousness, benevolence, love, blessedness. 
Sacrifice is the method of Jesus’ rule. Men should be per- 
fect. The ideal is absolute, its absolute quality is holiness, 
passion for righteousness, an ideal which is coextensive 
with life, comprehends all objects and aims that are good. 
In contrast with the supreme ideal of Buddhism (renun- 
ciation) the essence of the Christian ideal is consecration. 
Christian conscience thus receives distinctive character, 
namely, from its informing principle of love; including 
duties to self as a moral end, to others as moral ends, and 
duties in relation to God as willing the supreme end of 
being. 

Christianity as Final.—In relation to Christian theol- 
ogy, the task of Christian ethics as defined by a typical 
expositor, is to make clear the meaning and basis of the 
Christian ideal from the point of view of its connection 
with Christian faith.28 Its interest is to exhibit the con- 
tent of the Christian ideal, therefore the individual and 
social life required by that ideal; the grounds of conviction 
of the attainability of the ideal in the dynamic which 
Christian faith supplies. Foster finds the basis for this 
procedure in the Christian value-judgment that the Chris- 
tian ideal is the culmination of the moral life of humanity: 
this ideal is characterized by universal validity. The con- 
tent is ‘‘a fellowship of persons united by the principle 
of self-denying love.’’?® In this kingdom of moral per- 
sonalities all individuals are ends, and in all these ends 
love rules. In contrast with old-time emphasis on self- 
sacrifice, Foster restates the ideal in terms of the modern 


28 See G. B. Foster, Christianity in its Modern Expression, 1921, 
p. 190. 
29 Ibid., p. 213. 


Ethics and Religion A479 


ethical ideal that nothing should be denied, but all should 
be organized. So we may come to realize that the Chris- 
tian moral law opens up to the individual the way to per- 
fect unity and freedom, and with this to the supreme con- 
tent of the inner life. For Foster the ideal of Christian 
morality is indeed unsurpassable; for there is nothing 
higher than personality, nothing higher than the fellowship 
of love of such persons, with the infinite capacity for 
development which this ideal affords. 

Doctrinal Limitations.— Whatever the student of ethics 
may conclude regarding arguments for the finality of the 
Christian religion, the great need throughout is to note 
that it is a question of a given system already accepted 
as final on doctrinal grounds. On the other hand a study 
of the situation ag historically developed by Myers shows 
how and when the doctrinal ideas were introduced, without 
pre-judgments for or against any given Christian system.*° 
Myers regards the displacing of naturalism by supernat- 
uralism in ethics as one of the most momentous in history. 
Thus was made rigid large sections of the moral code, and 
a certain immobility tended to characterize the religious- 
ethical life of European civilization. So too the dogma of 
the fall of man became one of the most influential concep- 
tions in the moral domain ever entertained by the human 
mind.* Orthodoxy came to mean the substitution of cor- 
rect religious opinion in place of the former emphasis on 
moral life as the ideal: orthodoxy has been unwilling to 
admit that charity, ‘‘though combined with perfect up- 
rightness of life and expressed in noblest acts of self-ab- 
negating service of humanity, is a saving virtue unless 
associated with correctness of religious belief and the out- 
growth of it.’’*? And so came into Christian thought cer- 
tain limitations, and the exclusion of ideals highly esteemed 
by the Greeks and Romans. With the exaltation of faith 
above reason came the assumption that in the revealed 
word of the Church was possessed all knowledge really 

30 Op. cit., p. 256, foll. 


31 Ibid., p. 259. 
32 Ibid., p. 262. 


480 The Moral Life 


essential to man’s welfare and salvation. The chief defect 
was in making the acceptance of all the articles of a given 
creed an indispensable virtue. ‘‘In assigning orthodox be- 
lief this place in the ideal of moral goodness, theological 
ethics has marred Christian morality by fostering the faults 
of intolerance and intellectual insincerity. This dogma 
inspired in the Chuch, as soon as it became powerful, a 
persecuting spirit, and made Christianity for centuries 
something alien to its real genius and spirit—one of the 
most intolerant of the world’s religions.’’ ** Thereby was 
discouraged intellectual veracity and open-mindedness, and 
the vice of insincere conformity was fostered more than 
any other fault, to the detriment of Christian morality 
even to the present day. 

The resource would be to learn the lesson which history 
teaches when treated as Myers regards it, to return to the 
sources of Christianity by returning to the sources of re- 
ligion in unfettered human experience. Just what Chris- 
tianity meant in its original form, apart from all sectarian 
versions, would still be a problem. But for one thing it 
meant fullness of life as an intelligible moral ideal discov- 
erable by each individual through experience. And this 
ideal may be put in intelligible relation with the other 
great moral ideals of history, to see what part religion has 
played in the development of ethics as a whole. 

The Ethical Problem Today.—For many Christians it 
is no longer a question of fidelity to this or that creed but 
of a moral obligation to make one’s organization as dis- 
tinctively ethical and as strongly Christian as one can. 
The recent tendency among leaders in various Christian 
churches in America, for example, has been to recover the 
original Gospel at its best, to make this teaching more 
explicit as emphatically ethical, and to show that it is a 
Gospel of social salvation. Hence, in the foregoing chap- 
_ ters, we have indicated that the real problem today is 
to carry out in actual social life what we believe, making 
our moral creed an efficient force, adapting it to present 
needs while at the same time emphasizing the truth that all 

33 Tbid., p. 265. 


Ethics and Religion 481 


true reform begins in the inner life. Such a union of 
forces shows ethics and religion working together, where 
sectarian considerations would have separated them. 
Rauschenbuseh, for example, has been looked up to as 
leader in this emphasis on the social gospel of Christianity. 
According to this inspiriting view, Christianity was pure 
and unperverted when it ‘‘lived as a divine reality in the 
heart of Jesus Christ.’’ °4 The purpose of Jesus was the 
social redemption of the entire life of the human race on 
earth. Jesus was never very passive. He was ‘‘high- 
power energy from first to last. His death itself was action. 
It was the most terrific blow that organized evil ever 
got. .. .’’®° The idea of justice was not lacking in Chris- 
tianity as thus regarded, but justice was looked upon as the 
most fundamental quality needed in the moral relation- 
ships of men, the condition of good-will between individ- 
uals, the foundation in very truth of the social order. 
Hence the fundamental step toward Christianizing the so- 
cial order will be the establishing of social justice by the 
abolition of unjust privilege.*® The objective is ‘‘the high- 
est degree of personal liberty plus the most effective codp- 
eration of all, freedom being ‘‘the condition of a Christian 
social order.’’ The kingdom of God to be established on this 
basis will include, in Rauschenbusch’s view, the economic 
order; since it means ‘‘the progressive transformation of all 
human affairs by the thought and spirit of Christ,’’ with 
opportunity for every one to realize the full humanity 
which God has put into him as a promise and a call.” 
Summary.—Religion as we have regarded it in this 
volume is a life, and the dynamic or life-giving element 
should be paramount from first to last. There are points 
of divergence between ethics and religion, especially in re- 
lation to theology and the churches; but emphasis belongs 
rather on the points of resemblance and identity. For 
religion, regarded as making for the fullness of life, con- 


34 Christianizing the Social Order, p. 49. 
35 Ibid., p. 67. 

86 Ibid., p. 337. 

37 See ibid., p. 458, foll. 


482 The Moral Life 


tributes the quickening power or incentive, the hope, and 
horizon needed by morality. Ethics is concerned with what 
is universal, and so with universal principles in the great 
religions of the world; not with arguments for finality 
or ecclesiastical authority, or even for the supremacy of 
the Christian religion as Christianity has often been con- 
ceived. 
REFERENCES 


Paumer, G. H., The Field of Ethics, 1901, Chaps. IV, V. 

SETH, J., Hthical Principles, Part II, Chap. II. 

Gizycki, G., An Introduction to the Study of Ethics, trans., 
Chap. VIII. 

PauLseNn, F., System of Ethics, trans., Bk. II, Chap. VIII. 

Ten BRoeke, J., The Moral Life and Religion, 1922, Part IT. 

RasuHpAuL, H., The Theory of Good and Evil, Bk. ITI, Chap. IT. 

SmytTuH, N., Christian Ethics, 1892. 

Scort, E. F., The Ethical Teaching of Jesus, 1924. 

Hume, R. E., The World’s Living Religions, 1924. 

Eitwoop, C. A., The Reconstruction of Religion, 1922. 

Dresser, H. W., Psychology in Theory and Application, Chap. 
XLI (references on the psychology of religion, p. 679). 

Watson, J., Christianity and Idealism, 1897, Chap. I. 

LuicgHton, J, A., Religion and the Mind of To-day, 1924. 


CHAPTER XXIX 
ULTIMATE VALUES 


First and Last Things.—To turn to the consideration of 
ultimate or metaphysical questions in relation to ethics is 
not to engage in a distinctively different inquiry. Meta- 
physies is the study of first principles, the ultimate nature 
of reality. It is concerned with ‘‘first and last things’’— 
the nature and structure of Being, the significance of Be- 
coming (evolution), the reality of the human self and 
human experience. It investigates the beginnings and end- 
ings or presuppositions and conclusions of the special 
sciences, such as physics, chemistry, biology ; and considers 
these in their inter-relationship, unity, or system. Every 
special discipline makes its assumptions, develops the 
hypotheses peculiar to it; but also leaves issues for con- 
sideration, as fundamental to any thorough-going study of 
the nature of things. 

In the foregoing chapters we have considered some of 
the first and last things, without sharply distinguishing 
these matters, as if they belonged wholly outside of ethies. 
We began with moral activity, moral experience, the self or 
personality regarded as real; we accepted moral values as 
bearing relation to experience of the highest type in a 
realm of values; and we have considered the basis of moral 
obligation, duty, or conscience as a principle of constancy 
fundamental to the structure of moral reality. We have, 
in brief, taken the moral order itself to be part of the ulti- 
mate structure of the universe. The question of freedom, 
which some moralists treat as a metaphysical rather than 
an ethical issue, was introduced as essential to a study 
of theories of the good; also the problems of evil, optimism, 

1 Cf. Seth, op. cit., p. 360. 

483 


484 The Moral Life 


and pessimism. The relation of ideals as moral forces 
to causal sequences has come before us, too. Hence the 
persistent question is this: What is the relation of values 
to reality? This problem is as old as Plato’s time, namely, 
the relation of experience in general—with its appearances 
or relativities, its imperfections and disappointments—to 
the Ideas as archetypes. Space will not permit an analysis 
of the problem except so far as me may indicate certain 
typical lines of approach. 

The Conservation of Values.—A direct road to the 
issues likely to be raised by the student of ethics, approach- 
ing ultimate problems from the point of view of values, 
is found in Hoffding’s Philosophy of Religion. Although 
the principle proposed by Hoffding bears special reference 
to religion, it is as directly applicable to ethics; since the 
criterion is to be discovered within ethies rather than in 
any religious system. The hypothesis is this: the conserva- 
toon of value is the fundamental axiom of religion. Value 
is defined as ‘‘the property possessed by a thing either of 
conferring immediate satisfaction or serving aS a means 
to procuring it. Value therefore may be mediate or im- 
mediate. Where immediate value is given we seek it to 
preserve it; where not given, to produce it. We make it 

. our end.’’? Hoffding finds that the question of the 
conservation of religious values is an ethical question be- 
cause it is for ethics to show what is the highest present 
value, how value is to be fostered as of central importance. 
It is in experience that values are discovered, we look to 
experience to disclose whatever values may yet be given, 
and not until experience has made its full deliverance shall 
we know what other values are to be considered. The 
question of the relation of values to reality is a meta- 
physical question because, in the first place, the theory 
of knowledge is involved. 

The Basis of Values.—If, for example, we analyze re- 
ligious views of the world, to find a secure basis for values, 
we find that since Kant’s day such views are no longer 
defensible as scientific conceptions of the nature of things, 

2 Op. cit., p. 12. 


Ultimate Values 485 


as if religion offered primary knowledge of reality: the 
essence of religion is valuation, not comprehension of exist- 
ence, the central conviction being that no value perishes 
out of the world. Religion sought to show that the world 
was produced by a push from without, by divine will. But 
there are fundamental difficulties besetting the idea of a 
First Cause, as the beginning of a series of causes. The 
tendency to localize God in space, as ‘‘above’’ while the 
world is ‘‘below,’’ gave way in time to the conception of 
‘‘above’’ and ‘‘below’’ as symbolical, that is, it became 
a distinction of value. A change came about also in re- 
gard to time. Creation was once regarded as time run- 
ning out, with a beginning and end, with means and ends 
separated ; and while this mundane sphere was a place for 
work without enjoyment, heaven was to be enjoyment with- 
out work. The dualism of past and present, time and 
eternity, Hoffding regards as the worst of dualisms. Work 
and development should have immediate value, with per- 
manence of value throughout time’s changes; the eternal 
life is already present. 

What now is the central question for those who are seek- 
ing a basis for the persistence of values? Hoffding begins 
with the problem of the interconnection of phenomena, the 
need for continuity in our consciousness, an inner law- 
abiding connection which holds the world together from 
within. The principle of unity must not lead out beyond 
itself, must round out knowledge, conclude the intellectual 
process. If we start with the idea of God, as the rational 
explanatory principle, and regard God and the world as 
two beings, the conception fails: we can not deduce the 
manifold from unity, the world from God, the imperfect 
from the perfect, the mutable from the immutable. Neither 
creation nor emanation is adequate. God as the absolutely 
unchangeable ground of continuous change is unthinkable. 
We are thrown back to the view that possibly Being is 
not complete. We may of course regard God as inclusive 
of the highest known values, ethical and esthetic. Since 
experience is inexhaustible, there is indeed no objective con- 
clusion to our knowledge. 


486 The Moral Infe 


Being as the Basis.—What results if we try out the idea 
of the psychical side of existence as continuous, as the 
innermost essence of reality, experience being spiritual ac- 
tivity? Hoffding’s difficulty here is that we do not know 
whether the inner essence is psychical or material.* The 
question can not be answered. Our arguments from the 
facts of consciousness to the conception of a world-ground 
proceed according to analogy. But analogy is not knowl- 
edge. The analogy falls short, idealism remains a faith 
only. Our thought changes indeed from concepts to fig- 
ures of speech, because of the inadequacy of our more 
precise terms. Figurative ideas express relations, hence 
never yield an absolute conclusion. Even the idea of ‘‘per- 
sonality,’’ applied to God or the ultimate Principle, fails 
at the essential point; for it is drawn from the idea of a 
finite ego—a single member of the great world-order, in 
contrast with the inexhaustible principle. But in the idea 
of God nothing finite remains. So too ideas of ‘‘Force,’’ 
**Life,’’ ‘‘Substance,’’ fall short. The result of Hoffding’s 
inquiry can not however be sheer agnosticism or doubt, 
for whatever knowledge we have is a part of existence. It 
is still rational to regard Being as the home of the devel- 
opment and conservation of value. 

Inner Experience as the Basis.—It is plain that the 
object of religious consciousness can no longer be grasped 
by immediate intuition. We can not claim, by ‘‘an expan- 
sion of feeling’? that we have arrived at the ultimate es- 
sence of things. By experience (1) we acquire only par- 
ticular and definite values, conditioned by our nature, and 
the special conditions of life; (2) we learn nothing posi- 
tive about the conservation of values—the highest value is 
not shown by experience to be the central fact of existence ; 
(3) we gain only at best a motive for believing. In other 
words, (1) we do not experience the cause, what is imme- 
diately experienced being an abstraction; (2) we do not 
learn the supernatural in contrast with the natural: we 
judge by tradition, that is, we experience the strivings 


3 Ibid., p. 74. 


Ultemate V alues 487 


and states inculeated by tradition; our experiences are 
made for us by the creeds, are assigned to a lower rank; 
we need therefore a counter-test to test experience; and 
(3) our experience remains individual. Nevertheless, re- 
ligious feeling presupposes (1) experience of life, truth, 
beauty, goodness; (2) a striving to maintain values.* 
Where our knowledge falls short, we tend to supplement 
knowledge by faith, that we may pass beyond the oscilla- 
tions of experience to steadfastness in our search for rest, 
our effort to rise above differences and struggles. Faith 
assumes the principle of continuity, eomprehensibility, God 
as its object, and the principle of the conservation of value 
through all experience; it implies stable and continuous 
direction of the mind in the assertion of the persistence of 
values. Hoffding concedes that experience is thus far real 
experience of the relation between value and reality. The 
eontent of religious experience always depends however on 
the experiences of man, what he has found to be of value. 
The highest value is not demonstrable. The religious life 
still yields a greater continuity than religious ideas. As 
the center or basis of these ever-persistent experiences of 
ours, seeking values and endeavoring to preserve them, 
human personality should be regarded as end, above mere 
means, above mere authority; as winning and developing 
conviction. 

The Present Life as Basis—When it becomes a matter 
of selection between values, discovered and produced as 
they are in the world of experience, the ethical standpoint 
is decisive, with the implied faith in present values. Hoff- 
ding does not at all depend on the supposed moral compen- 
sations of the future life. He is too agnostic or skeptical 
to say whether there be a future life. All values are dis- 
covered and produced in this world. The idea of the other 
world is derived from ideas of this one, and the idea of 
another world can never be a primary concept.® Real life 
is life in this world. Only experience can ever decide 
whether another world exist. Hence in the last analysis 


4 Ibid., p. 113. 
5 Ibid., p. 330, 


488 The Moral Lrfe 


we are sent back to the present movement toward culture, 
under the ethical command to make this life valuable.® 

Few writers have more searchingly narrowed down the 
issues to those that are central for ethics. Hoffding’s con- 
clusion seems for the moment meager in the extreme. His 
point of view is purely naturalistic; the laws and forces 
of nature stand first in order; law is primary, qualities 
secondary; the axiom of the conservation of values is 
regarded as inferior in validity to the conception of the 
conservation of energy. Religious ideas are assigned to 
second rank throughout; for religion lives on in human 
feelings and needs, not by surety of knowledge; religious 
thought either (1) hesitates between literal and figurative 
terms or (2) falls back on mysticism, rejecting all anal- 
ogies, holding that God is outside of every concept or 
genus. The prime result is paradox, dependence on habit 
and imagination, a return to the salvation-motive, the in- 
terspersing of gaps in knowledge with dogmas and symbols, 
dependence on ‘‘saints’’ and prophetic personalities. But 
while this critique is disillusioning in the extreme for re- 
ligion, it is of prime significance for ethics: the discovery, 
production, and conservation of values in this world af- 
fords sufficient moral opportunity for all men. If a spir- 
itual world exist, life here in behalf of the highest known 
values will be the best preparation. God, as object of 
faith, is the ideal basis of just these values whose per- 
sistence we believe in and work for. Ethics does not eall 
upon man to do more than is implied in the axiom of the 
conservation of values. 

The Value of Faith—The uncertainty with which this 
critique leaves us is indeed characteristic of the moral life. 
This fact came before us in the study of freedom, or the 
ambiguities of our moral future. Because of this uncer- 
tainty man as essentially a moral being is under obligation 
to choose, choice is a venture implying faith: man in part 
ereates his own future by his deed. If man knew what we 
all at times wish we knew, precisely how the future is to 


6 Ibid., p. 381. 


Ultimate Values A489 


develop for us, he could not make a real decision. Even 
an act of self-sacrifice is ‘‘a leap in the dark.’’ No vir- 
tuous deed carries with the motive that gives it impetus a 
guarantee that it will necessarily bring the consequences 
sought. Our faith is that the moral order is more real, 
good is greater in power than evil, meliorism more nearly 
true than pessimism; but it is still a faith. 

The remarkable fact about man’s moral history is that 
there is a moral constant persisting through all changes 
so that, however great the relativity of his knowledge, 
whatever the upheavals in the period in which he lives, 
he still passes moral judgment, considers moral law and 
obligation, goes forth into duties, and makes the ventures 
of faith with moral conviction. The conservation of values 
is indeed a profound fact of his history. It is this which 
gives constancy to his religion. This fact points forward 
to a constructive faith in the integrity of conduct and char- 
acter regarded as implying the future life and a spiritual 
world, so that the ethical argument for immortality is by 
common consent the strongest. 

Beyond Agnosticism.—To note the relativities on which 
Hoffding and others who build on the critical philosophy 
of Kant insist is not then to revert to mere positivism, 
empiricism, or phenomenalism. For ethics, in developing 
conceptions of goodness, duty, moral law, conscience, free- 
dom is concerned with realities; and the implied constant, 
principle, or highest value accepted as needing no demon- 
stration, is a principle central to our intelligence in acquir- 
ing metaphysics or ‘‘first philosophy.’’ We have to this 
extent already advanced beyond the point of view of de- 
scription and begun to interpret, whereas natural science, 
with all its certainty, in terms of the reign of law, the con- 
servation of energy, the persistence of the relationship of 
cause and effect, remains on the level of description. The 
moral order is an interpretative order. It demands what 
Seth calls ‘‘speculative courage,’’ which is at the root of 
all intellectual progress.? The moral philosopher contrib- 


7 Op. ctt., p. 356. 


490 The Moral Lrfe 


utes a system of value-judgments to be brought into rela- 
tion with esthetic judgments and judgments concerning 
scientific truth, convinced as he is that the Good is one of 
the three surpassing Eternal Values. He insists as stoutly 
that the facts of moral experience shall have final hearing 
as the cosmologist with all his assurance insists that the 
mechanical order of nature qualifies ultimate reality. It 
is a notable fact that men more nearly agree in ethics than 
in theology or in metaphysics. Indeed, allowing for dif- 
ferences in terms it might be said that a single ethical 
system is implied in the trend of thought, assimilating as 
it does elements from “both empirical and rationalistic 
theories with reference to a conception of the ideal self, 
in process of attaining realization, satisfaction or perfec- 
tion. It is ethics, with its strong emphasis on the worth of 
the individual, alike in empirical and in idealistic theories, 
which more than any other discipline, holds out against any 
mere monism or pantheism insisting on a single self or 
the lumping of Self with the World. Still, for ethics as 
surely as for any other fundamental point of view, the 
unity of the cosmos is a postulate. Whether the basis of 
this conception is to be gained, with Green, by a study of 
the spiritual principle in knowledge, in nature, in man, 
as intelligence, is too large a question to concern us here.® 
The student of ethics is likely to consider the traditional 
three issues at least—God, freedom, and immortality—in 
their relation.%? He probably will not be satisfied with 
mere pragmatism, namely, the notion that an ethical con- 
ception suffices if it ‘‘works’’ in application to this life as 
just now presented. What ‘‘works’’ is not thereby proved 
true. It may not take us beyond custom or appearance. 
What works at one time may not at another. Thus far we 
have not penetrated beyond particular judgments concern- 
ing what is right, as among the Spartans, who abandoned 
their weaklings to perish. What accords with our moral 
nature in the long run is what we seek. Our moral nature 


8 Cf. Muirhead, op. cit., p. 218. 
2See Prolegomena to Ethics, Bk. I, 
10 Cf, Seth, op. cit., Part ITI, 


Ultimate Values 491 


persists through all the mutations of particular judgments. 
What is the meaning of this persistence of the self through 
all its discoveries, the production and preservation of 
values ? 

Kthical Points of View.—It is not difficult to see why 
some writers on ethics, holding in general to a critical 
rationalism akin to Hoffding’s, are skeptical in regard to 
ultimate reality and accept little more than the positive 
knowledge of the surest of the special sciences. The moral 
life is said to be a scheme of values for this life because, 
for one thing, such writers have experienced a reaction 
against the religious conception of the world. Their atti- 
tude is typical of the decay of belief in God, doubt concern- 
ing immortality. The only authority left is that of moral 
reason in its most meager form. Hence, instead of under- 
taking to develop an ethical system by including the great- 
est conceptions of the ages, what these writers expound 
is their own temperamental reaction upon life as they 
view it, devoid as their life is of insight. The resulting 
ethical conceptions are so meager that one is surprised that 
the moral life was chosen for discussion at all. It is sig- 
nificant that some of these writers are still trying to be 
hedonists, in the face of the long array of arguments 
against it. Others become antagonistic the moment one men- 
tions Christianity as in any way superior to other relig- 
ions, and such writers would rule out of the present volume 
every term suggestive of theology or the spiritual life: 
one must be absolutely impartial, never for a moment sug- 
gesting that ethics is of value in the remaking of human 
nature. But to be so dreadfully dispassionate is to neg- 
lect one of the great lessons of the whole history of ethics, 
namely, that the true universal is concrete, is grounded in 
particulars. Hence we have insisted throughout that it is 
wholly ethical to believe and to do something in particular, 
to cleave to some system, some institution, or religion, and 
to work to make that system the best it can become. Hence 
we have given consideration to the religious view of the 
world, and accorded a hearing to teachings which find in 
Christianity the fulfillment of ethical systems at their best. 


402 The Moral Life 


In a work like Martineau’s Types of Ethical Theory, 
there is also, it is true, a temperamental reaction upon the 
world; but, in contrast with the various naturalisms, it is 
a reaction rich in result, because Martineau brings to his 
task a constructive religious faith enabling him to appre- 
ciate realities of the moral order which scarcely exist even 
as appearances for those whose ethical faith is limited by 
naturalism. So too Leighton, on the basis of a closely 
reasoned philosophical system and an idealistic point of 
view in ethics, defends the religious conception of the 
world, and sees in Christianity the culmination of the great 
religions.*+ 

For Rashdall, the starting-point in constructive faith is 
the basic reality of the self, as implied in all knowledge, as 
the cause of its own activities; together with the objectiv- 
ity of the moral law, conceived as having real existence.” 
Morality then is absolute. If we ask where it exists, the 
reply is, not in material things, or merely in the mind of 
this or that individual. For there exists a Mind ‘‘for 
which the true moral ideal is already in some sense real 

. the source of whatever is true in our own moral 
judgments.’’** Belief in God then is the logical presup- 
position of an objective or absolute morality, the postulate 
of God’s existence is a postulate of sound morality: the 
universe must have a rational purpose or end. The pos- 
tulate of immortality follows. The ultimate coincidence 
between the higher and lower kinds of goods demands im- 
mortality, namely, as essential to the true and full well- 
being of the soul. It is typical of many writers on ethics 
thus to start with the reality of the moral self and its re- 
lation to human action as the primary postulate of ethics, 
with belief in God as the second postulate, and immortality 
the third, all three being postulates of what Kant called 
the practical reason. 

Christianity as Ultimate Basis—For writers like Wat- 
Son an interpretation of Christianity is from the start 


11 See, especially, Religion and the Mind of To-day, 1924. 
12 Op. cit., Vol. II, p. 189. 
13 [bid., p. 212. 


Ultimate Values 493 


essential to a constructive faith.14 Christianity as Watson 
interprets it shows morality and religion indissolubly con- 
nected. The whole race is taken to be a single spiritual 
organism. Each man is to gain his own perfection by self- 
conscious identification with all the rest. This commun- 
ity of life is possible because identical in nature with the 
one divine principle. To attain unity with himself, the 
individual must surrender his whole being to the influence 
of the Holy Spirit. There is no other basis for the moral 
ideal, and no possibility of its realization apart from the 
religious ideal: the life of man is moral in so far as it is 
in harmony with the divine nature. It follows then that 
goodness is real in the ultimate nature of things. It 
follows too that it is religious faith which alone gives full- 
ness of meaning to moral effort: to overcome the world is 
to overcome one’s lower self. Repentance is a personal 
consciousness of the infinite love of God.7° The king- 
dom of heaven is already present in the souls of those who 
have absolute faith in the goodness of God, a faith ex- 
pressed in unselfish devotion to one’s fellowmen, rejoicing 
in the adversities which beset those who live by this faith. 
Righteousness in the fuller sense of the word depends on 
spiritual regeneration. The source of morality is found 
then, not in the external act, but in the inner spirit from 
which the act proceeds; the moral law is indestructible. 
The spirit of God is present in each member of the whole 
spiritual organism, ‘‘at once distinguishing and uniting 
them.’’?° There is then a spiritual community in which 
each man is to find himself by losing himself. 

The Philosophy of History.—It is plain that such an 
interpretation of values, in contrast with their mere con- 
servation on a naturalistic basis, Involves a philosophy of 
history which in turn is a clue to a system of metaphysics. 
We have seen that it was not customary in the ancient 
world to regard human life and civilization as a progress, 
and so the philosophy of history did not, as in the case of 

14 J, Watson, Christianity and Idealism, 1897. 


15 Op. cit., p. 63. 
16 Ibid., p. 97. 


494 The Moral Life 


the other philosophical disciplines, berin with the Greeks. 
Plato and Aristotle interpreted existence in the light of 
eternal values, but not in the sense of an interpretation 
of human history regarded as a whole.” The idea of a 
connected world-plan of historical development had not yet 
been conceived. But with Christianity came the concep- 
tion of the whole movement of the world towards an end 
as essentially the experiences of personalities, while the 
outer world became the field for the development of the 
relationships of persons. The principle of love became the 
determining power, with the consciousness of the solidarity 
of the human race. Here, to be sure, Christian thought 
deviated for generations into the pathways of dogma turn- 
ing upon the conviction of universal sinfulness and the 
need for a common redemption; and so the subsequent 
history falls outside of the ethical field till ethics wins its 
freedom. But the point of view of an interpretation of 
human history had come to stay, the educative value of 
the divine revelation became a prevailing interest, man 
and his destiny was a starting-point, and these conceptions 
found fruitful development in a later period. In the days 
of Lessing and Herder, for example, religion as made pos- 
sible by revelation is still the clue from which the educa- 
tion of the human race is regarded.t® Hence comes the 
problem of civilization of a still later generation, the ques- 
tion whether civilization has fostered the moral order and 
increased man’s true happiness. The starting-point for 
interpretation need not be that of a divine revelation alone, 
but may begin with a view of man’s first estate when com- 
pared with actual history, or with history regarded as an 
uninterrupted progress of natural development, as in Her- 
der’s philosophy of history. It is the idea of humanity 
then which comes to be the great interest.?® 

Our interest in the philosophy of history centers about 
the fact that the system of ethical values which we adopt 


17 See Windelband, History of Philosophy, trans., p. 255. 

18 Windelband, op. cit., p. 498. 

19 For the later developments of the philosophy of history, see 
Windelband, op. cit., pp. 605, 612, 652; Leighton, The Field of 
Philosophy, p. 485, foll. 


Ultamate Values 495 


is the basis for such a philosophy.” It is, to be sure, the 
study of history which yields the data on which such a 
system is founded, as we have seen in our frequent refer- 
ences to the history of ethics and to the works of Myers, 
Hobhouse, and other writers who treat ethics historically. 
There appears indeed to be a logical cirele here: history 
is judged by a system of ethical values which appear to 
have been derived from a study of history; and there seems 
to be no escape from the circle. But although it was Chris- 
tianity which brought in the idea of the interpretation 
of human history in terms of the development of person- 
alities, it was the analytical philosophy of Plato and Aris- 
totle which yielded the norms. Our study of ethical con- 
ceptions as found in the historical studies of the subject 
would have very slight value for us were it not for the 
profounder ethical principles which were arrived at when 
the moral unwersal (of the Socratic insight) was put over 
against the deliverances of man’s mere history. Partisans 
of divine revelation as the starting-point contend that 
without a revelation man would never have been able to 
interpret history aright, while devotees of moral reason 
(developed independently of any specific theory of revela- 
tion) emphasize man’s intuition or creative insight as yield- 
ing the true universal. Certain it is that the central basis 
of ethical judgment is a value which does not need to 
be demonstrated, which man brings to his history as his 
principle of interpretation. The central principle is meta- 
physical, and is to be carried over into the implied system 
of philosophy, together with the assumed reality of moral 
selves, and the postulates of God, freedom, and immor- 
tality. 

The Future Life——Whatever view one may adopt con- 
cerning religious conceptions which we have touched on 
above so as to put in strong relief the alternatives to nat-. 
uralism, the final issue for many of us is that of immor- 
tality ; and here it is chiefly a question of the reconstructed 
faith which many have acquired by facing the critical 


20 Cf. Leighton, The Field of Philosophy, p. 498. 


496 The Moral Life 


problems dwelt on by writers like Hoffding. The starting- 
point is in an affirmative conception of goodness or value 
implying the reality of the moral self and a field of experi- 
ence sufficient for the complete working out of the age- 
long issues of freedom, equality, and justice. Granted this 
firm belief in the moral order of the world, with prospect 
of continued moral progress, the point of view of ethical 
idealism becomes triumphant, the natural world is looked 
upon as the first field of exercise of the moral spirit, and 
the future life as the carrying out of the activities here 
scarcely begun in the larger sense. 

So we note that with the breaking down of attempts to 
localize God in space, to think of creation as a beginning 
and ending of time, or of heaven as a ‘‘place’’ just above 
the earth, many other conceptions have broken down too: 
eternity has ceased to be a sphere to be entered, heaven is 
no longer postponed to a remote spiritual world, but we 
already live in the realm of the Eternal Values. In short, 
the moral life has become continuous. Since earth is no 
longer a place where all is ‘‘work without enjoyment,’’ 
heaven is no longer anticipated as a realm of perfect bliss in 
bare monotony of inactivity. Conduct through unbroken 
progressive changes has become the ideal whether here or 
there. 

We are coming to know this life so well that it has ceased 
once for all to be temporal. The more deeply we live in 
the present, discerning and working for its values, the less 
we live in mere time, the more we are already in the eternal 
moral order where values survive. Death, as a relatively 
external event, is no longer the decisive moment of human 
striving, as if ‘‘probation’’ ended with it. Such deeds as 
we have done with heart and will persist in their effect on 
our character. Real changes are not due to the shifting 
of a spatial garment, as if we were to ‘‘put on’’ an im- 
mortality which begins then, by ‘‘entering’’ an eternity 
which was alien to us before. There are as few ‘‘leaps’’ 
in the moral order as in nature. The self does not ‘‘leave’’ 
time, if by time we mean the moments of our experience, 
that is, the ‘‘real time’’ of Bergson which we ‘‘live 


Ultamate Values 497 


through.’’ Character is in the making, in the persistence 
of the moral self, along with the temporal process in the 
natural world wherethrough moral deeds are made actual 
in relation to other events. What is inner and in a measure 
concealed while we lead this mundane existence, with the 
conventionalities behind which we hide, the traditions 
which we keep, and the language which was given us to 
““conceal thought,’’ will undoubtedly be disclosed in what 
we call the future life, so that each of us will stand for 
what we truly are; and what we truly were an incident 
or two before death we undoubtedly will continue to be an 
incident or two after—till new occasions suggest new 
duties. 

Moral Persistence.—In Janet’s terms the future life 
will not then be a ‘‘recompense,’’ as Christians long 
thought, under the notion that virtue is a mere ‘‘reward’’; 
it will be a ‘‘deliverance,’’ freedom from illusions. Hence 
meditation on our future sends us back to profounder rec- 
ognition of what we are in our present experience. Very 
far from being sheer creatures of circumstance, we as surely 
reap what we have sown as if we were nothing more than 
units of behavior in a causal series inexorably ruled by 
mechanical necessity. Indeed, moral choice is brought home 
to us as the quintessence of activity. We are actually in a 
measure creators of our desitny, despite the truth that, 
as Wordsworth assures us, we are ‘‘building up the crea- 
tures that we are.’’ Whatever our potentialities, either 
as children of nature or as participants in the divine pur- 
pose, we have power of recognition, assent, rejection; hence 
power to keep on with what we have chosen. And what 
I in my decisive moment select bears fruit in kind, the 
activities set free by choice of potentialities persist as un- 
mistakably in my future selfhood as if (with believers in 
Karma) I were bound by ‘‘the wheel of life,’’ and doomed 
to be incarnated again. Moral persistence or conservation 
is higher in type than causal or mechanical sequence. The 
freedom we seek is as far from the old-time Christian 
heaven of bliss as from the Nirvana of the cessation of all 
desire. Activity through victory and the desire for more 


498 The Moral Infe 


opportunities and fresh victories is precisely what we have 
come to desire. 

Everything turns upon our conception of personality as 
the locus of values.2?. There is little to be said about im- 
mortality if we have succumbed to behaviorism and nat- 
uralism; there is everything to be said if we realize the 
significance of the ethical argument for personality. We 
live this life best by seeking to realize and to manifest it 
more abundantly. Emphasis belongs on the dynamic or 
creative element. Memory of the past remains to show us 
what we were in part, what we did in part. Meanwhile 
the ‘‘something more’’ in us that found only partial ex- 
pression lives on through other moments of real experience, 
each with its more than temporal aspect because, as mem- 
bers of eternity, we pertain to the moral order. External 
things still partake of the imperfections which Plato sig- 
nalized by ever reminding us of the Ideas. But we move 
forward to nearer realizations of the ideal, in touch in- 
wardly with a higher type of life. Some of our attain- 
ments have barely begun. We are aware of possibilities 
scarcely realized under conditions imposed by our life as 
just now ordered, under economic needs and social de- 
mands. Our present moral life is in large measure an 
adjustment. But this adaptation to conditions and occa- 
sions is part and parcel of the moral order, the values 
acquired will persist. We may reasonably anticipate the 
future of ever more complete self-realization. 

There is strong reason to believe that the human spirit 
is not merely constituted for existence in the natural world. 
If the spirit were thus limited the widespread belief in 
human immortality, with our moral ideals and high aspira- 
tions would be what Ward ealls ‘‘unaccountable anomalies, 
a cruel and senseless mockery without a parallel. 
Within the whole range of the wide world’s literature we 
find no more constant theme than just this disparity be- 
tween man’s possibilities and aspirations on the one hand 
and the narrow scope afforded them in the brief space 


21 Cf. Seth, op. cit., p. 450. 


Ultumate Values 499 


of the present life on the other.’’ 2? The conditions of the 
present life are inadequate to our highest personal ends, 
but also inadequate from the point of view of our possible 
moral victories, since ‘‘evil is not overcome unless over- 
come in each individual.’’ Hence our conviction that if 
the moral life has the full meaning which it seems to pos- 
sess, ‘‘a certain personal continuity and continuity of de- 
velopment is essential.’’ 7% 

Man’s True Selfhood.—From Kant’s point of view, we 
find ourselves already living ‘‘as if immortal; in the moral 
life we constitute ourselves heirs of immortality, by living 
the life of immortal or eternal beings. Man’s true life is 
not, like the animal’s, in time, a life in time; its law issues 
from a world beyond ‘our bourne of Time and Place,’ 
from a sphere ‘where time and space are not.’ In every 
moral act, therefore, man transcends the limits of the pres- 
ent life, and becomes already a citizen of the eternal world. 
He has not to wait for his immortality ; it broods over him 
even in the present, it is the very atmosphere of his life as 
a moral being.’’ 24 

This conviction that man, the real moral self, is already 
a denizen of the eternal world, by implication, has been 
the central thought throughout the ages in the ethical ideal- 
isms which have been taken seriously. Moral values, re- 
garded in this light, are not mere items of transitory util- 
ity. The values of our moral experience imply the Realm 
of the Eternal Values as an actual moral order of the 
universe. The self or soul, dwelling between, partakes of 
both the natural world of space and time and the eternal 
world of Values. As such in innermost essence, man is 
eternal, and interiorly he transcends the world of time 
by his moral deeds. His real life comes from the higher 
sphere. And so his life has real meaning, his moral deeds 
accomplish something, add actual values to the moral 
order. So too his freedom is real—not alone in the higher 
sphere from whence his power comes—but in the sphere of 


22 The Realm of Ends, p. 386. 
23 Ibid., p. 407. 
24 Seth’s summary, op. cit., p. 451. 


500 The Moral Life 


his moral deeds in this world, with the triumphs won in 
making his ideals efficacious. Thus the two worlds are 
brought closer than Kant brought them. ‘‘The strenuous 
and idealistic moral temper is rooted in the conviction of 
the eternal meaning of this life in time, and is willing to 
stake everything on this great Peradventure.’’ *® 


REFERENCES 


MACKENZIE, J. S., Manual of Ethics, Concluding Chapter. 

MurrHead, J. H., Elements of Ethics, Bk. V, Chap. III. 

SeruH, J., Hthical Principles, Part ITI. 

GREEN, T. H., Prolegomena to Ethics, Bk. I, Chap. I. 

RASHDALL, H., The Theory of Good and Evil, Bk. III, Chap. I. 

Lana, B. M., A Study in Moral Problems, Chap. II. 

Warp, J., The Realm of Ends, 1911, Chaps. XVITI-XX. 

LeiaHtTon, J. A., The Field of Philosophy, Chap. XXVII; 
Religion and the Mind of To-day, 1924, Part III. 

BosaNnQuEt, B., The Principal of Individuality and Value, 1917. 

LatrD, J., The Idea of the Soul, 1924, Chap. IX. 


25 Seth, tbid., p. 451. Seth gives telling expression to the wide- 
spread sentiment in favor of belief in immortality, p. 453, foll. 


INDEX 


Accountability, 205, 257 

Action, moral, 94; springs of, 
ethical scale, 288-243 

Activity, 51-58 

Adler, F., on Golden Rule, 372 

Alexander, 8., definition of prog- 
ress, 461; on egoism and altru- 
ism, 307; on moral progress, 
457-459 

Altruism, 299; as natural fact, 
301; origins, 303; sphere of, 
352-366 

Altruism and egoism, combined, 
305; resemblances, 307 

American morality, 438 

Analysis of moral states, 378 

Anti-nationalism, 431 

Antisthenes, 144 

Aristippus, 121 

Aristotle, and international prin- 
ciples, 427; contrasted with 
Kant, 177; doctrine, 173 

Art of life, 26; of morality, 27 

Asceticism, 152 

Attention, 260, 27 

Authority, factor in morality, 84- 
87 

Awareness. See Consciousness 

Bad and good, 202; 

Beauty, 35 

Behavior and character, 67 

Benevolence, 346; defined, 347 

Bentham, on hedonism, 125, 126; 
on the good, 131 

Bergson, on freedom, 280; on 
intuition, 59 

Bowne, B. P., on Christianity, 476 

Bradley, F. H., on duty, 194 


will, 248 


Brown, W. A., on God, 387 
Business ethics, 413 


Caird, E., on Stoicism, 148 

Calculus of pleasures, 123-125 

Calvinism, 248 

Casuistry, 375-376 

Categorical imperative, 162-164 

Cattell, definition of heredity, 263 

Causality, ideal, 272 

Chance, defined, 268 

Character, 67-70, 264; and at- 
tention, 261; and conduct, 62- 
76, 257; as test of virtue, 369; 
defined, 68 

Charity, and love, 349; defined, 
348; test of life, 349 

Choice, 6, 270; and habit, 256; 
in determinism, 279; moral de- 
cisions, 262 

Christianity, and democracy, 435; 
as social gospel, 480; construc- 
tive faith, 492; devotion to 
purpose, 156; doctrinal limita- 
tions, 479; ethics, 476-481; in 
business, 413; in moral prog- 
ress, 450-452; relation to 
Kant’s doctrine, 165; vs. Greek 
idealism, 174 

Civilization, meaning, 448 

Codes, moral, 9-11, 84-87; as 
test of virtue, 370; not final 
authority, 192 

Compensation, 357 

Complexes, 45 

Compromise, 411-413 

Conduct, and character, 62-76, 
257; and motives, 65; defined, 
67; evolution of, 133-135; 


501 


502 


good, 180; moral, 2; moral 
judgment of, 98; moral order, 
37; predictability of, 257; 
synthetic, 391. See also Ac- 
tion 

Conscience, 4, 225-244; Ameri- 
ean, 438; and intuition, 167- 
168; a phase of consciousness, 
235; a synthesis, 236; as a 
voice, 5, 228, 386; as dictate, 
231; as faculty, 227; as test 
of virtue, 369, 386; authority 
in, 237; defined, 225-226; di- 
vine, 232; elements of, 233; 
ethical constant, 233; evolu- 
tional view, 229; function, 106, 
243; growth, 235; interna- 
tional, 436, 440; moral con- 
stant, 228; practical clues, 232 ; 
qualities, 234; religious, 231; 
scale of excellencies, 238-243; 
vs. intuition, 227 

Conscience, social, 437-441; de- 
fined, 439; progress, 461 

Conscientiousness, 331 

Conscious self, 71 

Consciousness, 258; as conscience, 
235; creates unity, 309, 310; 
moral, and ideals, 7-9; of free- 
dom, 271; social, 45, 407-410 

Consistency in virtue, 411 

Conventionality, influence on mo- 
rality, 83 

Conversion, 49 

Coordination, 186 

Courage, 327; speculative, 489 

Creative work, 314 

Creeds, 84-87; as fetters, 474; 
loyalty to, 464 

Crime, and disease, 218; defined, 
212 

Cropsey, on crime, 213 

Culture, 332 

Custom, and duty, 92; and law, 
98; function in morality, 81 

Customs and ideals, 9-11 

Cynicism, 143; reason arbiter in, 
150; simple life, 143-145 


Darwinism, 138 
Democracy, and_ Christianity, 
435; Hughes’ opinion, 429; 


Index 


Mussolini’s view, 428; repre- 
sentative, 431; ultra, 433 

Determinism, 250-265; action, 
274; attention, 260; biological 
evidences, 252; choice, 279; 
cosmic evidences, 251; econo- 
mic, 254; ethical evidences, 
257; ethical objections, 260; 
heredity and environment, 263; 
moral decisions, 262; physio- 
logical, 254; psychological evi- 
dences, 255; psycho-physical 
argument, 258; rational free- 
dom, 276; sociological evi- 
dences, 253; vs. limitations of 
freedom, 282 

Devotion, ideal of fullness of 
life, 156 

Dewey and Tufts, on asceticism, 
152-153; on casuistry, 376; on 
character, 68; on egoism, 305; 
on Golden Rule, 372; on mo- 
rality, 82; on naturalism, 139 

Desire, 54, 56 

Discipline, 148 

Disease and crime, 218 

Duality of self, 416-423 

Duty, and custom, 92; and evil, 
219; and goodness, 189; and 
inclination, 190; and love, 192; 
and loyalty, 196; and prudence, 
239, 322; and responsibility, 
189-207; as adjustment, 200; 
command of, 192; conflict, 
195; defined, 189; for duty’s 
sake, 194; objections to, 191; 
ought as standard, 198; ra- 
tionalistie view 91; Stoic law, 
146 


Economic determinism, 254 

Education, moral, 404 

Efficiency, 47 

Egoism, 298; reaction against, 
304 

Egoism and altruism, combined, 
305; resemblances, 307 

Ellis, H., definition of science, 
26; on life as art, 26-27; on 
religion and ethics, 474—475 

Ellwood, C. A., on love, 356; on 
service, 355-356 


Index 


Emerson on compensation, 357 
Emotion. See Feeling 
Emotional origins of morality, 88 
Ends, action towards, 272; king- 
dom of, 163, 169, 170 
Endurance, 329 
Environment, mental, 419; moral, 
420. See also Heredity and 
Environment 
Epictetus, 149 
Epicureanism, early, 122 
Equality, 338-344; vs. 
tionality, 341, 
Equanimity, Stoic, 147 
Ethical constant, conscience, 233 
Ethical judgments, 31 
Ethics, and law, 427; and meta- 
physics, 483; and psychology, 
42-61; and religion, 464-482; 


propor- 


basis of, 1-113; defined, 1-4;7 


defined by Everett, 11; defined 
by Kant, 162; defined by Leigh- 
ton, 40; defined by Seth, 99; 
derivation of term, 9; inter- 
national, 425-443; nature and 
scope, 1-16; relation to other 
sciences, 31-35; standard of, 
35; ultimate values, 483-500 

Eudemonia, in Aristotle’s doc- 
trine, 173; of Socrates, 171; 
Janet’s, 177 

Everett, W. G., definition of 
ethics, 11; on desire, 55; on 
religion and ethics, 472; on 
values, 39 

Evil, 203; a disorganization, 222; 
and ignorance, 218; and re- 
sponsibility, 220; and sin, 208- 
224; crime, 212, 218; defined, 
209-212, 216, 217; melioristic 
view, 295; moral, 210; reality 
of, 214; social, 211; theories 
of, 208; vs. mistakes, 217 ; vice, 
215 

Evolution, and moral reason, 141; 
and progress, 447; and utili- 
tarianism, 131-142; of con- 
duct, 133-135; of morality, 85- 
93; value of, 140 

Experience, basis of values, 486; 
moral, 4 

Extroverts, 46 


503 


Failure, moral, 41, 398 

Faith, 488 

Fatalism, 245 

Feeling, 62 

Fenwick, C. G., on international 

law, 426 

Fite, W., on individualism, 308, 
310-311; on social conscious- 
ness, 407; theories of the good, 
115 

Forces, moral, 20, 389-406 

Formalism and intuition, 160-170 

Fosdick, H. E., on Christianity 
and progress, 450-452 

Foster, G. B., on Christianity, 
478; on freedom, 287-2883; on 
free will, 247. 

Freedom, in action, 274; and 
goodness, 115-318; as ideal, 
288; attention in, 277; aware- 
ness of, 271; Bergson’s view, 
280; certainty of, 278; chance, 
268; choice, 270; defined, 266, 
281; degrees of, 287; ideal, 
268; initiatives, 273; in Stoic 
terms, 147; interpretations of, 
285; Kant’s, 164, 279; limita- 
tions of, 282; moral, 267; na- 
ture of, 266-284; of will, 3, 
245-266; rational, 164, 275, 
279; types, 286. 

Friendship, 362-365. 

Fullerton, G. 8., on egoism, 304; 
on social will, 312 

Fullness of life, 48; devotion, 
156 

Future life, 495-500 


Giving, 352-354 

God, as conscience, 386; basis of 
moral obligation, 107; basis of 
values, 488; consciousness of, 
469; omnipotence, 247 

Golden Rule, as test of virtue, 
3713; reciprocity, 356; moral 
law, 192 

Good, and bad, 202; as a goal, 
186; as utility, 131; defined, 
9, 179; ethical types, 115; 
greater vs. higher, 182; pleas- 
ure as, 115-130; theories class- 


504 


ified, 115-117. See also Good- 
ness 

Good fortune, 345 

Good will, Kant’s doctrine, 160- 
166 

Goodness, 35; and duty, 189; and 
freedom, 115-318; and its con- 
ditions, 458; and _ progress, 
461; as organic, 184; dawn of 
morality, 92; extrinsic, 180; 
intrinsic, 181; organic self- 
realization, 182; stages of, 
184; test of, 183; types of, 
179-181. See also Good 

Green, T. H., on conscience, 233 ; 
on desire, 56; on self in action, 
57 

Group morality, 79; phenomena, 
45 

Guilt and sin, 206 


Habit, 57; and choice, 256; and 
selfishness, 412-413 

Happiness, and pleasure, 125- 
130; Rashdall’s definition, 137. 
See also Eudemonia 

Hartmann’s philosophy, 292, 293 

Hedonism, 115, 121-128; ethical, 
131; evolutionary, 133-142; 
objections to, 122; psychologi- 
eal, 131 

Hedonistice ealeulus, 123-125 

Hegesias, 122 

Heredity defined, 263 

Heredity, and environment, 252, 
263 

History, growth of moral sys- 
tems, 10; philosophy of, 495; 
progress in, 447 

Hobbes, on egoism, 298 

Hobhouse, L. T., on moral prog- 
ress, 452; on morality, 78, 82, 
90-92 

Hoffding, on religion and ethics, 
473; on values, 484-488 

Honor system, 409-410 

Hughes, on democracy, 429 

Human nature, 42-60; social 
view, 44; three meanings, 43 


Ideal, sphere of, 22; and practi- 
cal, 17-30; wise man’s, 146 


Index 


Ideal freedom, 268 

Ideal life, 398 

Ideal self, 187 

Ideal utilitarianism, 137-139 

Idealism, 116, 171-188; and op- 
timism, 290; Janet’s, 177; 
Paulsen’s solution, 176; prob- 
lem of, 389-392; Seth’s theory, 
175; sources, 25; vs. Christian- 
ity, 174 

Idealistic theories of the good, 
116 

Ideals, 7-11; and events, 17-30; 
as forces, 399; as objectives, 
401; national, 460; progress. 
in, 459 

Ideas as forces, 390 

Ignorance and evil, 218 

Immorality, 14 

Immortality, 495-500 

Impulse, 394 

Inclination and duty, 190 

Independence, 329; Stoic, 147 

Indifference, 275 


‘Individual, begins reforms, 21,. 


305; worth of, 298-318 
Individualism, 308 
Individuality, and 

313; limiting, 315 
Initiatives, 273 
Inner life, and conduct, 3, 4 
Instinct, 53, 394 
Integration, moral, 62 
Integrity, 324 
Intelligence and evil, 219 
Intention, and action, 96; and 

motives, 64-66 . 
International conscience, 440 
International ethics, 425-443 
International law, 425 
International progress, 436 
Interpretation, moral, 49; vs. 

explanation, 32 
Introverts, 46 
Intuition, 58-60; ambiguities of 

term, 167; as conscience, 167- 

Heo creative, 75; defined, 166, 

87 
Intuitionism, 166-170; 
166; objections to, 166 


orthodoxy, 


defined,, 


Janet’s Eudemonism, 177 


Index 


Joy, 129 

Judgments, ethical, 31; 
95-98 

Justice, and equality, 338, 343; 
Aristotle’s, 336; Plato’ 3, 335; 
ideal end, 344; main work of, 
360; reciprocity, 356; scope, 
337: social, defined, 356, 


moral, 


Kant, I., categorical imperative, 
162-164; conception of free- 
dom, 279; contrasted with 
Aristotle, 177; definition of 
ethics, 162; doctrine of good 
will, 160-166; estimate of 
doctrine, 164; influence on 
ethics, 164; view of immortal- 


ity, 499; purpose, 161; rules 
of action, 170 

Karma, 291 

Knowledge, and virtue, 276; 


value of, 319 


Laing, B. M., on moral forces, 
392-400; on moral test, 453 

Law, and ethics, 427; beginnings 
of recognition, 82; civil, 99; 
developed by Stoicism, 146; 
international, 425; moral, see 
Moral Law; of progress, 456; 
reign of, determinism, 251 

Lawlessness, 413 

Leibnitz, 290 

Leighton, J. A., definition of 
ethics, 40; on justice, 344; on 
religion and ethics, 474; on 
values, 39, 40 

Liberalism, religious, 471. 

Liberty, defined by Leighton, 344 

Life as an art, 26 

Love, and duty, 192; and justice, 
359; as charity, 349; as mo- 
tive, 359; as mutuality, 359; 
defined, 356; ethical, 361; in 


giving and receiving, 352; 
ruling, 285 

Loyalty, and duty, 196; to 
creeds, 464 

Luck, 345 


McConnell, R. M., on altruism, 


505 


300-303 ; on moral forces, 390- 
392; on ’ will, 301. 

MeDougall, W., on democracy, 
431; on international ethics, 
430-435 

Mackenzie, on desire, 54; on will, 
56 

Mandeville, on egoism, 298 

Manliness, 328 

Marcus Aurelius, 149 

Marriage, 361 

Martineau, J., ethical scale, 238- 
243; on moral judgment, 95, 
97; on moral law and the self, 
106; on moral worth, 110; on 
prudence, 322 

Mecklin, J. M., on moral prog- 
ress, 457; on social conscience, 
437-440 

Meliorism, 294; 
evil, 295 

Mental levels, 47 

Metaphysics and ethics, 483 

Mill, J. 8., doctrine, 131-133 

Mind, 394; mental levels, 47 

Mistakes, 217 

Moderation, test of virtue, 373 

Moods, 396 

Moral action, 94 

Moral codes, 9-11 

Moral command, 73 

Moral conduct, 2 

Moral consciousness and 
7-9 

Moral constant, conscience, 228 

Moral evolution, 85-93 

Moral experience, 4 

Moral failure, 41, 398 

Moral forces, 20, 389-406 

Moral integration, 62 

Moral judgment, 95-98 

Moral law, 34, 98-102; and obli- 
gation, 103; and the self, 105; 
Golden Rule, 192; origin, 99; 
sanctions, 101; the ought, 198 

Moral life, 319-500 

Moral obligation, 94-113; basis, 
ultimate, 107; function of con- 
science, 106; nature of, 102; 
reasons for, 103 

Moral order, 37 

Moral philosophy, 11-14 


limitations of 


ideals, 


! 


506 


Moral problems, 407-424 


Moral progress, 444-463; test, 
453—456 

Moral reaction, 13 

Moral reason, and _ evolution, 


141; defined, 76 

Moral standards, 5-7, 15, 90 

Moral struggle, 17-30 

Moral values, 28-30 

Moral worth, 110 

Morality, 1, 14-16; absolute ele- 
ment, 110; and religion, 471; 
art or discipline, 27; authority 
in, 84-87, dawn of, 77-93; 
emotional origins, 88; first 
problems, 78; function of cus- 
tom, 81; group, 79; influence 
of conventions, 83; levels of 
development, 82; original mo- 
tives, 78; reason as origin, 90— 
92; reflective, 88; starting 
point, 80 

Moralizing, 12 

Morals, derivation ef term, 9 

Motives, 65, 66; and action, 96; 
of morality, 78; strongest, 270 


Mussolini, on popular sover- 
eignty, 428 
Mutualism, 355 
Mutuality, defined, 358; in 


friendship, 363 

Myers, P. V. N., on Christian 
doctrines, 479, 480; on con- 
science, 369; on moral prog- 
ress, 452; on morality, 80; on 
national ideals, 460; on social 
conscience, 435, 436, 437 


National and universal ethics, 
430 

National ideals, 460 

Nature, Galton’s definition, 263 

Naturalism, 300; objections. 302 

Necessitarian theory, 250 

Neighborliness, 354 

Nirvana, 292 


Obedience, and duty, 189 

Obligation, moral. See Moral 
Obligation 

Opportunity, 342, 345 


Index 


| Optimism, and pessimism, 285- 


297; moral, 289; popular, 289 
Organic self-realization, 182 
Organic view of morality, 135 
Organism, moral, defined, 181 
Orthodoxy and individuality, 313 
Ought, the, 198-200; as basis of 

judgment, 199; as standard, 

198; creative, 199 


Pain, and evil, 209; and pleas- 
ure, 119 

Palmer, G. H., definition of free- 
dom, 281; definition of organ- 
ism, 181; on ethical scale, 241; 
on giving, 353-354; on justice, 
360; on love, 359; on mutual- 
ity, 358; on religion and ethics, 
47] 

Panetius, 149 

Participation, 358 

Patience, 330 

Paulsen, F., on Christianity and 
Greek idealism, 176; on cul- 
ture, 332; on duty and custom, 
92; on egoism, 305; on self- 
control, 325; on woman’s pa- 
tience, 330 

Perry, R. B., on moral progress, 
454 

Perseverance, 329 

Person, defined, 73 

Personality, 332, 345; as locus 
of values, 498 

Pessimism, 291; and optimism, 
285-297; in hedonism, 122; 
limitations, 293; types, 292; 
value, 293 

Philosophy, moral, 11-14; of his- 
tory, 493 

Plato, doctrine, 171, 335 

Pleasure, and happiness, 125- 
130; and pain, 119; as the 
good, 115-130; characteristics, 
119; hedonism, 121 — 125; 
scope, 117-119; seeking, 117. 
See also Hedonism 

Practical, defined, 23; vs. ideal, 
17-30 

Pragmatism, 490 

Predestination, 246; Calvinism, 
248; necessitarian view, 250 


Index 


Progress, defined by Alexander, 
461; law of, 456; moral, 444— 
463 

Proportionality, 341 

Prudence, 238; and duty, 322 

Psychology, principles essential 
to ethics, 42-61; the new, 422; 
value in ethics, 49 

Purpose, 57, 128 


Questions, 112, 130, 317 


Rashdall, H., definition of ben- 
evolence, 347; on egoism, 307; 
on faith, 492; on hedonism, 
124; on ideal utilitarianism, 
137-139; on justice, 343-344; 
on optimism, 289 

Rational freedom, 164, 275, 279 

Rational standard in Stoicism, 
146 

Rationalism, in Plato’s doctrine, 
172. See also Cynicism, and 
Reason 

Rationalistic view of morality, 
90-92 

Rauschenbuseh, on Christianity, 
481 

Reaction, against old moral sys- 
tem, 13 

Realistic theories of the good, 116 

Reason, arbiter in Cynicism and 
Stoicism, 150; in freedom, 
164; in Stoic philosophy, 146; 
moral, and evolution, 141; 
moral, defined, 76; origin of 
morality, 90-92; universal, ba- 
sis of moral obligation, 107 

Reciprocity, 81, 356-3857; as mu- 
tuality, 358 

Recompense, 343, 344 

Reflective morality, 88 

Reform, moral, individual, 21 

Religion, and ethics, 464-482; 
and morality, 471; conserva- 
tion of values, 484; elements 
of, 468; in moral progress, 450 

Remorse, 206, 257 

Repressions, 419 

Resolution, 56 

Responsibility, 
evil, 220 


203-207; and 


507 


Revelation, origin of moral law, 
9 


Reverence, 240 

Right, defined, 9; vs. duty, 189 

Right and wrong, 102, 105, 108, 
201; defined by Martineau, 
110, 240; utilitarian view, 132 

Rights, nature of, 109 

Rogers, on compromise, 411; on 
self-realization, 408 

Roman Stoicism, 149 

Royce, J., on optimism, 289, 290 


Sanctions for observing laws, 101. 
Schopenhauer’s philosophy, 291 
Science, defined by Ellis, 26 
ae relation to ethics, 31- 
5 
Self, the, 70-76; and moral obli- 
gation, 106; as ideal, 71; as 
person, 73; center of values, 
37; conscious, 71; defined, 71; 
duality of, 416-423; freedom 
of, 266; ideal, 187; interde- 
pendence of phases, 182 
Self-assertion, 139 
Self-consciousness, 408 
Self-consistency, 365; Stoic good, 
148 
Self-control, 57, 325; in Paul- 
sen’s theory, 176, 177 
Self-culture, 331 
Self-denial, 153 
Self-determination, 185, 275, 344 
Self-discovery, test of progress, 
455 
Self-examination, 378 
Self-expression, true, 422 
Self-indulgence and vice, 215 
Self-interest, 298; implies pleas- 
ure, 118 
Self-mastery, 421-423 
Self-organization, 186 
Self-realization, 76, 408; defined 
by Wright, 185; in idealism, 
175; organic, 182; Stoic good, 
148 


| Self-sacrifice, 151-159; as instru- 


mental, .:..155., defined. by 

Wright, 186; limitations, 157; 

uncertainties, 154 
Self-satisfaction, and pleasure, 


508 


118, 128-129; and the creative 
ought, 200 

Selfishness, 44; and compromise, 
412-413 

Seneca, 149 

Serenity, Stoic, 147; value of, 
400 

Service, 348, 355; and duty, 193 

Seth, J., definition of ethics, 99 ; 
definition of evil, 216; on con- 
duct, 67; on culture, 332; on 
idealism and Christianity, 174— 
175; on immortality, 498, 500; 
on justice, 337; on moral prog- 
ress, 455; on self-realization, 
175; on temperance, 326 

Shame, 206, 257 

Sheldon, W. H., on individualism, 
311 

Sidgwick, H., on ethical scale, 
240; theory, 136 

Simple life, 143-145 

Sin, an enigma, 223; and evil, 
208-224; and guilt, 206; and 
vice, 216; defined, 216; irra- 
tional, 221 

Slosson, E. E., geometry of vir- 
tue, 382 

Smith, Adam, on sympathy, 347 

Smyth, N., on Christianity, 477 

Social conscience, 437-441; de- 
fined, 439; progress, 461 

Social consciousness, 45, 407-410 

Social equilibrium, 457 

Social relation, 311-313 

Social self-realization, in moral 
organism, 181, 184 

Social utility, 132 

Social view of human nature, 44 

Social will, 312 

Socrates, and discipline, 
and self-mastery, 421; 
trine, 171 

Spencer, H., doctrine, 133-135 

Spinoza, 250, 299 

Spirit, human, defined, 75 

Spiritual progress, 449 

Spontaneity, 74 

Springs of action, ethical scale, 
238-243 

Standards, moral, 5-7, 15, 90 

Stephen, L., theory, 135 


143; 
doe- 


Index 


Stoicism, 145-151; and self-sac- 
rifice, 143-159; central inter- 
est, 148 ; emphasis on law, 146; 
equanimity, 147; freedom, 
147; reason as arbiter, 150; 
Roman, 149 

Subconscious mind, 45, 72 

Sublimation, 46 

Super-man, 333 


Sympathy, 347 


Temperament, 46 

Temperance, 325 

Ten Broeke, J., on duty, 193; 
on moral obligation, 104; on 
rights, 109 

Theology and religion, 466, 470 

Thing vs. person, 73 

Truths, self-evident, 168 

Tufts. See Dewey and Tufts. 


Unconscious, the, 45, 72 

Unity in life, 148 

Universalism, 431 

Universality as test of virtue, 
373 

Utilitarianism, and_ evolution, 
131 — 142; ideal, 137 — 139; 
Mill’s doctrine, 131-133; Sidg- 
wick’s view, 136; Spencer’s 
theory, 133-135; Stephen’s 
theory, 135; value of, 139 

Utility as the good, 131 


Valuation an attitude, 39 

Values, and causes, 393; and ob- 
ligations, 104; basis of, 484- 
488; conservation of, 484; 
Everett’s table, 39; extrinsic 
and intrinsic, 40; lower and 
higher, 37; moral, 28-30; 
realm of, 31-41; reasons for, 
36; relations to conditions, 41; 


sources, 35; testing, 39-41; 
ultimate, 483-500; working 
scale, 385 


Vice, and sin, 216; defined, 215 
Virtue, as conscience, 369; as 
habit, 58; as knowledge, 276; 
codes, 370; consistency in, 
411; defined, 320-322; effect- 
ive, 397; geometry of, 382; 


Index 


Golden Rule, 371; in Aristo- 
tle’s theory, 174; its own re- 
ward, 34; rules, limitations, 
376-381; tests of, 367-388; 
unity of, 367-369. See also 
Goodness 

Virtues, 319-334; as forces, 402- 
405; classifications, 322; fun- 
damental, 80; social, 335-351 

Vocations, 315 

Voice, of conscience, 5, 228; the 
‘¢still small,’’? moral value, 
386 

Volition, 186 


War, contribution to moral ex- 
perience, 18-22; world, lessons 
of, 20 

Ward, J., on action, 274; on 
causality, 272; on choice, 270; 
on immortality, 498 

Watson, J., on Christianity, 492 


509 


Westermarck, E., on duty, 193; 
on moral judgmert, 97; on 
morality, 88-90 

Will, 58, 55-57; a product of na- 
ture, 301; and action, 96; and 
evil, 219; bad, 248; freedom 
of, 3, 245-265; good, 162; 
moral, arousing, 414; pure, 
162; social, 312; vs. desire, 91 

Willoughby, W. W., on propor- 
tionality, 341 

Wisdom, 331 

Wise man’s ideal, 146 

Wish, 55 

Work, moral value, 414 

World-ground, 38, 107 

Wright, H. W., on self-realiza- 
tion, 185; on self-sacrifice, 186 

Wrong, defined, 9. See also 
Right and Wrong 


Zeno the Stoic, 145 


Date Due 




















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